The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera
The Hook:
Petra wants to be a storyteller just like her abuela. She loves listening to her stories of characters with strength, bravery, and sometimes trickery. But her dreams will have to be put on hold because the Earth is about to be destroyed!
The year is 2061, and Halley’s Comet has been knocked off course and is about to collide with Earth destroying everything. Petra, her little brother Javier, and her scientist parents have been chosen to be one of the few families to rocket to a new world before Earth is destroyed. However, they will have to leave behind Petra’s dear Abuela. Petra promises Abuela that she will remember her and share her stories with others in the new world.
Once on board, the people are put in a kind of sleep that will preserve them for the next 400 years. They also will download into Petra’s brain an education in biology so she will become one of their top scientists. Petra begs for a storyteller’s education full of mythology and folklore from diverse cultures too and a rebel worker secretly promises that he will plug this into her training also.
When Petra wakes up 400 years later, she learns that a cult like crew called The Collective, has taken over. Her family is no longer alive, and The Collective has purged—or rather killed—anyone that has any memory of Earth and/or fails to comply with their way of thinking. Diversity in any way is discouraged. Petra realizes quickly that she still has all her memories intact and a wealth of diverse stories, but she must keep this a secret, or The Collective will have her killed.
There are a few kids who have also woken up in her pod. They do not remember anything of their past life, but this new world is still scary and unfamiliar to them. Petra feels a need to take care of them and she uses her stories to help soothe their anxieties, especially at night.
The Collective is determined to destroy anything or anybody that is different, and Petra is desperate to escape their grasp with her new roommates as well. Can she do it? You will have to read the book to find out.
This book is in our library. It is also in Sora and Axis 360 as an ebook as well as an audio book. It is 11 AR points.
My Thoughts and Recommendations (Careful! There Could Be Spoilers):
The author braids folklore and science fiction together in this beautiful novel. But honestly, sometimes I had a hard time wrapping my head around it all. Because it is science fiction, in a new and very different world than today, the reader must work harder picturing it in their mind. But then the science fiction plot would stop as Petra told the folklore stories for several pages. Because I was not familiar with the folklore, again, I had to wrap my mind around that too. I think most will need to read this carefully and thoughtfully.
It is definitely a book that I thought about long after I finished reading it. The amount of loss that Petra feels, from the hope and connections she makes along the way is breathtaking.
I believe this book will be best for 6th grade on up to adult. 4.2 stars.
