The Girl from Earth’s End by Tara Dairman
2023; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 76; Issue: 7 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/bcc.2023.0112
ISSN1558-6766
Autores Tópico(s)Global Socioeconomic and Political Dynamics
ResumoReviewed by: The Girl from Earth’s End by Tara Dairman Amanda Toledo Dairman, Tara The Girl from Earth’s End. Candlewick, 2023 [384p] Trade ed. ISBN 9781536224801 $18.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 4-6 At the far reaches of the Gardenias archipelago, populated mostly by gardening enthusiasts, an infant is left on the island Earth’s End along with the packages delivered by the Orange Boat. The sole inhabitants of the island, partners Niall and Joaquim, adopt the little girl, naming her Henna, and together they live in a peaceful routine of gardening, fishing, and making art, until Henna is twelve and her Papa Niall falls gravely ill. Desperate to help him, Henna latches on to an idea: find Nightwalker seeds—a near mythical plant but one she has a lead on—at a boarding school on another island to save her Papa’s life. She pulls the Orange Boat’s captain’s genderfluid child named P into the search, and together the two set off to find the plant. Establishing the basics of the story—the island community, old grudges, and Henna’s dedication to her Papas—starts the book off at a tepid pace, [End Page 217] and major plot lines are slow to come to fruition. The pleasure comes in Henna’s adventure at St. Basil’s gardening boarding school and in the friends she makes there who nearly steal the show with engaging storylines. P masquerades as only a girl to build towards their social climbing aspirations, and the standoffish rich girl Lora brings complexity as she insists that using a wheelchair is not a detriment to her life and that she neither needs nor wants the “cure” her father vehemently seeks. Henna is the clear heroine here, but Lora and P prove just as (if not a bit more) compelling, and one can hope they’ll get their own books. The tale is a appealing blend of quirky, magical, and deeply heartfelt, with characters who unflinchingly face friendship, grief and loss; when it finds the right reader, it’s going to sit as a cozy pleasure. Copyright © 2023 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
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