The Girl from Earth's End
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Gifted gardener Henna embarks from her island home to search for the plant that might save her papa’s life in this vibrant story of love, grief, and growth. Twelve-year-old Henna loves living with her two papas and cultivating her beloved plants on the tiny island of Earth’s End—until Papa Niall grows seriously ill. Now Henna is determined to find a legendary, long-extinct plant with miraculous healing powers, even though the search means journeying all the way to St. Basil’s Conservatory, a botanical boarding school rumored to house seeds of every plant ever grown. At St. Basil’s, Henna is surrounded not only by incredible plants, but also, for the first time, other kids—including her new roommates: wisecracking, genderfluid P, who gleefully bends every rule they come up against, and wealthy, distant Lora, who is tired of servants doing everything for her, from folding her clothes to pushing her wheelchair. But Henna’s search for the fabled healing seed means she doesn’t have time for friends—or so she thinks. This tender tale, blossoming with moments of joy, is a story of hope, grief, and learning to flourish with a little help from those around you.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Twelve-year-old Henna Quinn-Correira, described as having sun-bronzed skin, has lived at the Gardenia Isles' remotest island, Earth's End, since being delivered by boat as an infant. Though her two papas, dark-complexioned Joaquim and pale-skinned Niall, weren't expecting to receive a baby in response to an ad for art project supplies, she's been with them ever since—developing an affinity for plant life and studying the Great Soil Blight that wiped out the islands' citrus industry. When Papa Niall's seeming allergies turn out to be the recurrence of a serious lung cancer, and Henna learns of the nightwalker plant—a rare, healing epiphyte of the islands' now-blighted orange trees—the girl leaves home to attend St. Basil's, the Gardenias' foremost plant sciences academy. The school may prove the repository of the nightwalker's remaining uncultivated seeds, which, Henna hopes, might be planted symbiotically with the island's last remaining orange tree to save Papa Niall's life. While thoughtfully building out the islands' natural world and touching on themes of discrimination, sustainability, and corporate ethics, Dairman (Desert Girl, Monsoon Boy) raises the stakes as quiet exposition gives way to a page-turning final half. The cast is intersectionally diverse; an author's note concludes. Ages 8–12.
