(Aug.) Correction: This review has been updated for accuracy. Author’s agent: Michael Curry, Donald Maass Literary. Cai’s grayscale spot illustrations imbue the book with shadowy breath and movement, bringing a lyrical undertone to the energetic plot and multifaceted, refreshing voice. Accompanied by her faithful sidekick, the ghost of her dead dog Kirby, her loyal friend, “white Celtic-and-Nordic-American” cheerleader Jay, and actively supported by her understanding parents, Ellie battles with ghosts, vampires, and exorcists in a series of suspenseful confrontations-including a descent into an underworld of trilobite fossils-that increase in intensity and eventually solidify her place in her strong maternal lineage of Native protectors. Lipan Apache Ellie, named for her “heroic ancestor”-her maternal sixth-great-grandmother, Elatsoe, now known as “Six-Great”-has inherited from her the gift of waking and training ghosts, and sets out to reveal the accident as a crime and unmask the killer. After 17-year-old, asexual Ellie’s older cousin Trevor is fatally injured in an apparent car accident, he comes to her in a dream, identifying his killer and begging her to protect his family. The picture-perfect facade of Willowbee masks gruesome secrets, and she will rely on her wits, skills, and friends to tear off the mask and protect her family.ĭarcie Little Badger is an extraordinary debut talent in the world of speculative fiction.Indigenous stories, modern-day technology, and the supernatural successfully blend to build a fast-paced murder mystery in Little Badger’s intriguing solo debut. Her beloved cousin has just been murdered in a town that wants no prying eyes. I started reading Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger during Indig-A-Thonand I had extraordinarily high expectations. She can raise the ghosts of dead animals, a skill passed down through generations of her Lipan Apache family. History is intrinsically malleable It’s carried in our minds, our records. But other forces are less charming and should never see the light of day.Įlatsoe lives in this slightly stranger America.

Some of these forces are charmingly everyday, like the ability to make an orb of light appear or travel across the world through rings of fungi.

This America has been shaped dramatically by the magic, monsters, knowledge, and legends of its peoples, those Indigenous and those not.

It’s got homework, best friends, and pistachio ice cream. Imagine an America very similar to our own.