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INTO THE TALL, TALL GRASS by Loriel Ryon

INTO THE TALL, TALL GRASS

by Loriel Ryon

Pub Date: April 7th, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-4967-1
Publisher: McElderry

A grieving New Mexico preteen learns to trust those around her.

Yolanda’s grandmother, called Wela, is dying, which will leave Yolanda and her twin sister, Sonja, without a guardian, as their widower father is deployed in Afghanistan. Between those losses, the death of her beloved grandfather, and the betrayal of her best friend, Ghita, who replaced Yolanda with Sonja, Yolanda feels utterly alone. It doesn’t help that Wela and Sonja both have the family “gift” of a supernatural connection with nature and Yolanda has none. The biracial girl’s bond with her Latinx maternal grandparents (her father is white) comes from their shared love of science—Welo was a geneticist determined to find out the source of the family trait—but since his death, Wela has wanted nothing to do with it. But Wela knows she’s dying, and she chooses Yolanda for one last, odd favor. To her chagrin, Yolanda is followed on this quest by her sister, Ghita, and Ghita’s brother, Hasik. (Ghita and Hasik are South Asian.) As Wela uses her remaining strength to tell the children the story of her family and their strange gifts, Yolanda finds her own confidence. This heartfelt family saga weaves together science and magic believably and sensitively. The cast of characters is, refreshingly, almost entirely devoid of white people.

This is how it feels to find out you may be the villain and the hero of your own story.

(Magical realism. 8-12)