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A Snake Falls to Earth
CCBC Review:
Nina, a Lipan Apache teen, lives with her bookseller dad but often visits her grandmother on the family’s ancestral land. Nina has been working for years to translate her late great-great-grandmother’s stories from Lipan Apache and Spanish, knowing they hold truths she longs to understand. Oli is a cottonmouth snake living in the Reflecting World, or pseudo-earth. Animal spirits like Oli once moved freely back and forth between the two worlds, until earth became too dangerous. Now only a few risk the journey, taking on their false (human) form to bring back relics (books) to better understand the human world. Young Oli’s chosen family includes a gentle toad named Ami, mischievous coyote sisters Risk and Reign, and an irrepressible hawk named Brightest. When Ami grows ill, the friends know it means Ami’s species on earth is at risk of extinction. Nina recognizes the four distinct teens who arrive at her house as animal spirits in false form. She joins their effort to save Ami’s species, but a hurricane, intensified by climate change, is bearing down, putting Nina’s grandmother, who grows inexplicably ill if she leaves the family land, at risk. The group heads there to help, unaware that a man who lives nearby is a particular threat to Oli and his friends. Strong characterizations and terrific dialogue propel this complex and compelling tale alternating between Nina’s and Oli’s perspectives as it explores the importance of connection and stories in individual lives and collective understanding. ©2022 Cooperative Children’s Book Center
CCBC Age Recommendation: Age 12 and older
Age Range:
Grades 6-8 (Ages 11-13)
Grades 9-12 (Age 14 and older)
Format:
Novel
Subjects:
Animals (Fiction)
Climate Change
Environmental Challenges
Fantasy
First/Native Nations
Friendship
Grandmothers
Lipan Apache People
Magical Realism
Stories and Storytelling
Diversity subject:
Indigenous
On CCBC Booklists:
Eco-Reading: Selected Books for Children and Teens about Our Earth and the Environment
Great Middle School Reads
Publishers:
Arthur A. Levine Books, Levine Querido
Publish Year: 2021
Pages: 372
ISBN: 9781646140923
CCBC Location: Fiction, Little Badger