Scout's Honor
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
*A PRINTZ HONOR BOOK *FOUR STARRED REVIEWS
Prudence Perry is a third-generation Ladybird Scout who must battle literal (and figurative) monsters and the weight of her legacy in Scout's Honor by Lily Anderson, a YA paranormal perfect for fans of Stranger Things and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Sixteen-year-old Prudence Perry is a legacy Ladybird Scout, born to a family of hunters sworn to protect humans from mulligrubs—interdimensional parasites who feast on human emotions like sadness and anger. Masquerading as a prim and proper ladies' social organization, the Ladybirds brew poisons masked as teas and use knitting needles as daggers, at least until they graduate to axes and swords.
Three years ago, Prue’s best friend was killed during a hunt, so she kissed the Scouts goodbye, preferring the company of her punkish friends lovingly dubbed the Criminal Element much to her mother and Tía Lo’s disappointment. However, unable to move on from her guilt and trauma, Prue devises a risky plan to infiltrate the Ladybirds in order to swipe the Tea of Forgetting, a restricted tincture laced with a powerful amnesia spell.
But old monster-slaying habits die hard and Prue finds herself falling back into the fold, growing close with the junior scouts that she trains to fight the creatures she can’t face. When her town is hit with a mysterious wave of demons, Prue knows it’s time to confront the most powerful monster of all: her past.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ladybird Scouts may portray themselves as community-minded young women with a fondness for tea parties and pastel colors, but in truth, they're also warriors who covertly protect the world from interdimensional monsters that most folks can't see. Critter-class mulligrubs are drawn to the mortal realm by intense emotions, which they gorge upon before transforming into Carnivore-stage people-eaters. Prudence Perry—a half–Puerto Rican, half-white 16-year-old from Northern California—was a third-generation Ladybird until three years ago, when she quit after her best friend died during a hunt. Physically scarred and living with an anxiety disorder and PTSD, Prue now spends her free time with a group of lovable "civilian" misfits—or at least, she did, until she broke curfew. As punishment, Prue must either transfer to an all-girls private school, or dust off her daggers and devote her summer to training new Scouts. Anderson (The Throwback List) deftly balances snarky humor and heart-thumping action with affecting discussions about friendship, inclusivity, and mental health. The surprise-studded plot seamlessly integrates both Anderson's clever, unique mythology and excerpts from the Ladybird Handbook, and the realistically rendered, intersectionally diverse cast is kind, charismatic, and full of moxie. Ages 14–up.
