The Land of Forgotten Girls
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- £3.99
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- £3.99
Publisher Description
In this acclaimed novel from Newbery Medalist Erin Entrada Kelly, two sisters from the Philippines, abandoned by their father and living in impoverished circumstances in Louisiana, fight to make their lives better.
School Library Journal called The Land of Forgotten Girls “A charming and affecting novel about sisterhood, the magic of imagination, and perseverance.” For readers of Pam Muñoz Ryan, Rita Williams-Garcia, and anyone searching for the true meaning of family. Winner of a Parents’ Choice Gold Award.
Soledad has always been able to escape into the stories she creates. Just like her mother always could. And Soledad has needed that escape more than ever in the five years since her mother and sister died, and her father moved Sol and her youngest sister from the Philippines to Louisiana. After her father leaves, all Sol and Ming have is their evil stepmother, Vea. Sol has protected Ming all this time, but then Ming begins to believe that Auntie Jove—their mythical, world-traveling aunt—is really going to come rescue them. Can Sol protect Ming from this impossible hope?
Acclaimed and award-winning author Erin Entrada Kelly writes masterfully about the challenges of finding hope in impossible circumstances, in this novel that will appeal to fans of Cynthia Kadohata and Thanhha Lai.
Booklist said, “Kelly’s sophomore novel is both hopeful and heartfelt, but strong emotions are only part of the successful equation here. Told in Sol’s true voice, the direct dialogue brings the diverse characters to vivid life.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kelly (Blackbird Fly) balances the bleak and the beautiful in a novel about the multilayered bond between sisters. Twelve-year-old narrator Sol and her six-year-old sister, Ming, live in a depressing, rat-infested apartment building with their cruel stepmother, Vea, who taps cigarette ashes into the carpet and locks them in the closet when they misbehave. Soon after the girls' mother and younger sister Amelia died, their father married Vea and moved all of them from the Philippines to Louisiana, only to abandon them and return home. In a supernatural thread woven into the story, Sol converses with the ghost of Amelia, who offers advice and helps Sol parse what is true and what is real. Fairy-tale fantasies and extensions of the tales their mother once told Sol contrast with her day-to-day life with her best friend Manny and a well-developed cast that includes an artistically inclined junkyard owner and a kind neighbor. While the story is resolved a bit tidily, Kelly's strong heroine offers hope in the face of loss. Ages 8 12.
