Darcie Little Badger's YA debut, Elatsoe, is a supernatural murder mystery that takes place in a United States that has Fairy Ring Transportation Centers, endless fields of scarecrows with human eyes, ghost mammoths and a rich history of Lipan Apache ghost whisperers. Creative and meticulously plotted, Elatsoe begins with the protagonist and readers knowing whodunnit--it's the why that is the question.
When Elatsoe's ghost dog, Kirby, throws a fit, she knows something is very wrong. The last time Kirby acted like this, Ellie's grandfather was having a heart attack. Scared something has happened to her parents, Ellie races into town to find them at the movie theater. When they emerge unscathed, she breathes a sigh of relief--until both parents discover several missed calls from her mother's brother. Ellie's cousin, Trevor, was in a fatal car accident.
That night Ellie, whose "family secret" is the knowledge of how to bring back the dead, dreams of Trevor. "A person's last breath carrie[s] them to the underworld. Perhaps, with that breath, they could speak a last message." Trevor does exactly that: "A man named Abe Allerton murdered me," he tells Ellie. "Don't let Abe hurt my family," he pleads. Ellie's mother and father believe that Ellie is as powerful as her Six-Great-Grandmother who traveled Lipan Apache territory saving her people from undead evils, dangerous creatures and deadly settlers. Knowing the strength of his daughter's gift, Ellie's father agrees to help her investigate. With the assistance of her parents and her good friend and Lord Oberon descendant, Jay, Ellie takes a trip across Texas to find Abe Allerton and bring him to justice.
Little Badger excellently balances humor and horror in this inventive YA mystery/alternate history/fantasy. Ellie is a very likable protagonist who reads like an authentic teen: she is witty but not unrealistically so; she is powerful but not always aware of the devastation she could accidentally cause, and her asexuality is simply part of who she is rather than a plot point. Additionally, her Lipan heritage and ethnicity is not just twined with the story, it is the story: her gift comes from Six-Great-Grandmother; she's vocal about the contemporary racism toward and mistreatment of Indigenous people; she is always prepared to deal with what her brown skin might mean in any situation; and she has a pretty ingenious way of dispelling vampires. Each chapter begins with the graceful, almost ethereal black-and-white illustrations of And the Ocean Was Our Sky artist Rovina Cai, adding to the evanescent vibe of the book, a Lipan Apache Sookie Stackhouse for the teen set. One hopes Ellie--and the wonderfully developed world in which she lives--will appear in many more books to come. --Siân Gaetano, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness
Shelf Talker: A Lipan Apache teen with the ability to raise ghosts travels across Texas to bring the man who killed her cousin to justice.