Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings, a memoir by Margarita Engle - ADVISABLE

Engle, Margarita Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings, a memoir, 193 pgs. Simon and Schuster (Antheneum Books), 2015. $17.99.  Language: G; (0 swears) Mature Content: G; Violence: G. 

Margarita loves both of her worlds: California where her family lives and her artist father works, and Cuba - her mother’s homeland and where her relatives live.  Sometimes she feels like her own twin, the wild one from the country who plays on the farms and rides horses in Cuba, and the shy twin who lives in California and spends most of her time in the library.  Her worlds are different, and, during the 1960s became very separate, as relations between the United States and Cuba became strained and traveling between the two worlds ends.  

This novel in verse is the autobiography of the author.  The language is beautiful and perfectly captures the angst of not fitting in, the fear of the unknown and the political situation.  A great middle level read. 

MS - ADVISABLE  Lisa Librarian          

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