Release Date: November 23, 2021
Publisher: Levine Querido
Genre: Indigenous Futurism, Young Adult
Description
Nina is a Lipan girl in our world. She’s always felt there was something more out there. She still believes in the old stories.
Oli is a cottonmouth kid, from the land of spirits and monsters. Like all cottonmouths, he’s been cast from home. He’s found a new one on the banks of the bottomless lake.Nina and Oli have no idea the other exists. But a catastrophic event on Earth, and a strange sickness that befalls Oli’s best friend, will drive their worlds together in ways they haven’t been in centuries.
And there are some who will kill to keep them apart.A Snake Falls to Earth is a breathtaking work of Indigenous futurism. Darcie Little Badger draws on traditional Lipan Apache storytelling structure to weave another unforgettable tale of monsters, magic, and family. It is not to be missed.
My Thoughts
The story begins with Nina’s Great-Great Grandmother telling a story no one can understand. As Nina grows up, she struggles to translate the story, while also building a following telling her own stories on a popular app. In the Reflecting World, Oli, a cottonmouth snake person, is thrust into the world to live on his own. And he promptly gets lost. He befriends a silent but amiable toad called Ami, an observant hawk named Brightest, and two very energetic coyote sisters, Reign and Risk. Nina deals with a sketchy new neighbor who is harassing her Grandmother while working to figure out what is causing her Grandmother’s mysterious illness; at the same time Oli is trying to avoid a frightening monster. When Ami falls ill, Oli and his friends realize the only way to help him lies in the human world. Saving Ami and Nina’s Grandmother will take hard work and dedication from everyone, human and animal person alike.
Read the rest of my review at locusmag.com.
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