Jazz Owls: A Novel of the Zoot Suit Riots

From the Young People's Poet Laureate Margarita Engle comes a searing novel in verse about the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943.

Thousands of young Navy sailors are pouring into Los Angeles on their way to the front lines of World War II. They are teenagers, scared, longing to feel alive before they have to face the horrors of battle. Hot jazz music spiced with cool salsa rhythms calls them to dance with the local Mexican American girls, who jitterbug all night before working all day in the canneries. Proud to do their part for the war effort, these Jazz Owl girls are happy to dance with the sailors--until the blazing summer night when racial violence leads to murder.

Suddenly the young white sailors are attacking these girls' brothers and boyfriends. The cool, loose zoot suits they wear are supposedly the reason for the violence--when in reality these boys are viciously beaten and arrested simply because of the color of their skin.

In soaring images and powerful poems, this is the breathtaking story of what became known as the Zoot Suit Riots as only Margarita Engle could tell it.

Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Published: 05/08/2018
ISBN: 9781534409439
Pages: 192
Weight: 0.60lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.80w x 0.80d

Review Citations: Booklist 02/01/2018 pg. 48
School Library Journal 02/01/2018 pg. 93
Bulletin of Ctr for Child Bks 05/01/2018
Kirkus Reviews 03/01/2018
Voice of Youth Advocates 04/01/2018 - Recommended - Hard To Beat
Horn Book Magazine 05/01/2018 pg. 129
Hornbook Guide to Children 07/01/2018 - Superior,Well Above Average

Accelerated Reader Quiz #/Name: 508812 / Jazz Owls: A Novel of the Zoot Suit Riots
Reading Level: 6.8 / Interest Level: Middle Grade Plus / Point Value: 2