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ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSMargarita Engle grows up split between two worlds: her American father's life in Los Angeles and her Cuban mother's family on a tropical island where horses roam farm fields and great-grandmothers grow their own food well into their nineties. Each summer trip to Cuba feels like stepping into her truest self, the girl she would be if she had never left. But as the Cuban Revolution unfolds in the late 1950s and the Cold War deepens, those summers stop coming, the island grows unreachable, and Margarita must figure out who she is when half of her identity has been cut off by politics she doesn't fully understand.
Free Battle of the Books questions for Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings: A Memoir
SPOILERSEvery one of these has the same answer, and that is the point. In a real battle the question is read aloud with a dozen other books in play, and students have a few seconds to place it. Here is what a battle might ask about Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings: A Memoir. Use them as a quiz, a trivia round, or BOTB practice.
Where in the book they come from
- Early in the book
In what book does a kindergarten teacher scold a child by saying real trees do not look like that?
✓ Answer
Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings: A Memoir by Margarita Engle
The narrator draws her first story as a picture of a dancing tree from the island, but her California teacher rejects it. This is when she first learns that teachers can be wrong.
- First half
In what book do sisters open their suitcases at a tropical airport to release pet butterflies?
✓ Answer
Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings: A Memoir by Margarita Engle
When the family lands in Havana, the cocoons in their luggage have hatched. Mad and the narrator set tiger swallowtails, mourning cloaks, and orange viceroys free into the fierce tropical heat.
- First half
In what book does a secretive cousin whisper "Up there, the law does not reach" while pointing at green mountains?
✓ Answer
Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings: A Memoir by Margarita Engle
On the farm, a cousin warns the narrator that the war is not really over. Some revolutionaries have become counterrevolutionaries hiding in the jungled peaks.
- Second half
In what book does a lonely girl find a tiny calico kitten stranded under a wooden stairway?
✓ Answer
Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings: A Memoir by Margarita Engle
On her walk home from sixth grade, the narrator rescues a stray calico kitten and demands the right to keep her. The kitten becomes a small comfort during a terribly lonely time after losing the connection to Cuba.
- Second half
In what book does a seventh grader stumble through halls without her glasses, enduring blurry vision to fit in?
✓ Answer
Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings: A Memoir by Margarita Engle
Mocked for her thick glasses, the narrator goes to school without them and walks through blurry halls. It's a small but painful image of how badly she wants to disappear into the crowd at junior high.
- Near the end
In what book do villagers form a bucket brigade to fight a wildfire sweeping down a hillside?
✓ Answer
Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings: A Memoir by Margarita Engle
When a heat wave brings flames roaring down a Spanish hillside, the villagers line up and pass buckets of water hand to hand. The narrator vows to remember this spontaneous unity in the face of disaster.
