Summer of the Mariposas

by Guadalupe Garcia McCall

Overview

Odilia and her four sisters rival the mythical Odysseus in cleverness and courage as they embark on their own hero’s journey. After finding a drowned man floating in their secret swimming hole along the Rio Grande, the sisters trek across the border to bring the body to the man’s family in Mexico. But returning home turns into an odyssey of their own.

Outsmarting mythical creatures, and with the supernatural aid of spectral La Llorona via a magical earring, Odilia and her little sisters make their way along a road of trials to make it to their long-lost grandmother’s house. Along the way, they must defeat a witch and her Evil Trinity: a wily warlock, a coven of vicious half-human barn owls, and the bloodthirsty chupacabras that prey on livestock. Can these fantastic trials prepare Odilia and her sisters for what happens when they face their final test, returning home to the real world, where goddesses and ghosts can no longer help them?

Summer of the Mariposas is not just a magical Mexican American retelling of The Odyssey, it is a celebration of sisterhood and maternal love.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940015561050
Publisher:	Lee & Low Books, Inc.
Publication date:	10/02/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	945,477
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Guadalupe Garcia McCall was born in Mexico and moved to Texas as a young girl, keeping close ties with family on both sides of the border. Trained in Theater Arts and English, she now teaches English/Language Arts at a junior high school. Her poems for adults have appeared in more than twenty literary journals. McCall lives with her husband and their three sons in the San Antonio, Texas, area.

Editorial Reviews

Originality and vibrancy shine through to make [this story] a worthwhile read.

Kirkus Reviews

Beautifully written, heart-wrenching, action-packed and funny as can be, Summer of the Mariposas is a must-read for kids 12 years and up.

The Monitor - David Bowles

Gr 6 Up—This novel more than fulfills the promise of McCall's Under the Mesquite. In Summer of the Mariposas, she audaciously sets out to retell Homer's Odyssey within the context of Latino folklore. Odilia is the oldest of five sisters who have vowed to stay together forever. When they happen upon the body of a drowned man in their swimming hole, they decide to take him back to Mexico to his family, who happen to live nearby their own grandmother. La Llorona appears to Odilia and becomes her mentor and guide. The journey to the girls' grandmother's ranch involves getting across the border with a corpse without being caught by authorities. Then the magical realism kicks in as Odilia and her sisters have to combat various supernatural beings, including a shape-shifting witch and the dreaded Chupacabras, the monster who eats goats. These are just some of the connections, especially with the books of scary short stories mentioned below, that make this book such a rich source of material to introduce children to Latino myths, as well as the Odyssey itself. I love McCall's take on La Llorona, whom she sets out to redeem as a sympathetic mother figure, rather than the scary child kidnapper she is most often made out to be.

School Library Journal