  | Full Text Reviews: Booklist - 02/01/2016 *Starred Review* Like her friends, 12-year-old Carolina eschews most of the Mexican side of her Mexican American culture, shortening her name to Carol and flat-ironing her wild hair. But now she is being forced to spend the summer before her first year of junior high in middle-of-nowhere New Mexico, as her family prepares to move her ailing grandfather, a man she has never met before, off his land and into a home for people with dementia. At first, the summer is as dry as she thought it would be—her father, who hasn’t been home in 12 years, is strained; her mother is stressed; and her older half sister is sullen. Then Grandfather Serge begins to tell her stories that sound half-crazed, about her grandmother’s wanderlust and his own rootedness, and about a lake in the desert and a tree that made it so no one would ever die. In spite of herself, Carol is drawn into these stories, learning more about her family history, and becoming increasingly uncertain about the truth. Tightly plotted and elegantly characterized, this is a striking debut. Both Carol’s journey and Serge’s stories seem inherently true, and the juxtaposition of the two results in a moving, atmospheric novel of family, heritage, and fairy tales that are more real than not. - Copyright 2016 Booklist. Loading...
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