Eleven-year-old Danny Monteverde believes in magic, he believes that the enchanted land of Rio Luna in his older sister's favorite book is real, and most of all he believes that if he can find the way to Rio Luna he will find his sister Pili there, because he does not believe that his sister would run away from the group home where they lived and leave him behind; but after years of being passed from one foster family to another his faith begins to fade--until one day he finds a mysterious book in the library that contains a map to Rio Luna...and a way to find Pili. - (Baker & Taylor)
Holding fast to the belief that his runaway older sister is waiting for him in the enchanted fairy-tale realm of their childhood, an 11-year-old foster child begins losing faith before discovering a mysterious library book that provides a direct map to his imaginary world. Simultaneous eBook. - (Baker & Taylor)
For fans of
The Land of Stories comes an adventure that reveals the secret warnings hidden inside all classic tales -- beware fairyland at all costs.
Eleven-year-old Danny Monteverde believes in magic. He knows that pixie dust is real, that wardrobes act as portals, and that rabbit holes lead to Wonderland. Most of all, he believes that his older sister, Pili, is waiting for him somewhere in Rio Luna, the enchanted land in their favorite book of fairy tales. Danny doesn't care what the adults say. He knows that Pili isn't another teen runaway. When the siblings were placed in separate foster homes, she promised that she'd come back for him, and they'd build a new life together in Rio Luna.Yet as the years pass, Danny's faith begins to dim. But just when he thinks it might be time to put foolish fairy tales behind him, he finds a mysterious book in the library. It's a collection of stories that contain hints about how to reach another world. A map to Rio Luna . . . and to Pili. As his adventure takes him from New York to Ecuador to Brazil, Danny learns that meeting your favorite characters isn't always a dream come true. But nothing will stop him from finding his sister . . . even if it means standing up to the greatest threat the magical realm has ever known.
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Scholastic)
Zoraida Córdova is the award-winning author of the Brooklyn Brujas series, The Vicious Deep trilogy, and Star Wars: A Crash of Fate. She has contributed stories to the New York Times bestselling anthology Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View, and Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women and Witchcraft. Zoraida was born in Ecuador and raised in Queens, New York.
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Scholastic)
Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Danilo Danny Monteverde has always believed in magic, but when he learns that his sister, Pili, has gone missing from her last foster home, his belief begins to wane. After years of disappointing and hurtful foster care situations, he still hasn't heard from Pili, but he remembers the fairy tales they loved together, especially their favorite book about a land called Rio Luna, where she promised to wait for him. This bouncy, bubbly narrative crafts an original fairy tale, following Danny on his adventure as he makes new friends and quests to save a magical tome and find his lost sister in Rio Luna. Córdova takes classic fairy-tale tropes and structure and modernizes them, adding diversity and providing a fresh storyline that a broad group of children will be able to relate to. Danny and his ragtag friends must find the correct portal and banish an evil Shadow Witch in order to preserve Rio Luna, and along the way they learn much about belonging, family, trust, and creativity. Fans of the Narnia books or Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth will delight in this microcosmic story-within-a-story, full of secrets and surprises and overflowing with introductions to a host of whimsical characters. Grades 4-7. Copyright 2020 Booklist Reviews.
