Marvelous Middle Grade Monday
The Last Cuentista (Levine Querido, 2021) by Donna Barba Higuera is a scary and compelling story of survival in the future and the power of storytelling.
Twelve-year-old Petra Peña and her family are leaving earth before it is destroyed. But first she has to say good-bye to her abuelita (grandmother), who tells her cuentos (tall tales), and isn’t going on the trip to a new planet. Petra expects to sleep in a stasis pod for 380 years, but something has gone wrong. She’s not sleeping. And then when Petra does awake, it’s to a nightmare of changed people, The Collective, who have renamed her Zeta-1 and expect that she’ll serve them, or be purged.
This book won the 2022 Newbery award and the 2022 Pura Belpré Medal. I think it’s great that this sci-fi story has so much recognition.
Grown-upness is truly wasted on grown-ups. At least that’s what 12-year-old Liam thinks. Everyone who sees him thinks he’s an adult because of his height . . . and the stubble. It’s fun when he can use this misunderstanding to his advantage. But now that he’s on this secret mission in a spaceship 239,000 miles from earth as the “adult” chaperone to a group of kids and they’re completely doomed . . . not so much.