Donald Maass Literary Agency

School Library Journal: This prequel to Elatsoe features Ellie’s grandmother Shane, a 17-year-old Lipan Apache, and further expands upon the strange and unique world. Shane and her mother track down missing persons using ghost dogs (familiar to those who’ve read Elatsoe), even when the families can’t pay them. This means Shane is used to barely scraping by, her deep practicality almost at odds with her unique power to raise the dead. When her mother disappears after tangling with a fairy ring, Shane will journey across the south and the world Below to find her. The narrative emphasizes generational trauma and the power of community with flashbacks, finding ways to ground the fantastical worldbuilding elements of vampires, fae, and ghosts in the culture and relationships Shane finds important. Little Badger artfully navigates Shane’s family history—from disasters to stolen land—and how they fight to reclaim their identity. While the novel stands alone, common elements from the first book reappear to add humor and tension. Part road trip, part classic quest, this novel manages to add fresh and exciting elements to the worldbuilding while retaining Elatsoe’s slightly spooky atmosphere. The flashbacks and changes in point-of-view slightly hinder the pacing, but readers will likely be too invested in Shane’s story to care. Shane and her family are Lipan Apache, with additional diversity in the supporting cast.

VERDICT: A wonderful addition to the Elatsoe universe with vital representation, worthy of any YA collection. Highly recommended.

Shelf Awareness: The gritty, luminous Sheine Lende, a prequel to Darcie Little Badger’s acclaimed first novel, Elatsoe, features stouthearted Shane (grandmother to Elatsoe’s Ellie) who uses the family’s ability to raise ghosts to find three people, one of whom is her own mother.

Little Badger’s beguiling novel includes stories within stories that enrich the main narrative, telling tales whose monumental purposes are “to be shared and remembered.” She entices readers by creating a world where monsters and “powerful magics” exist alongside actual history. Rovina Cai once again gracefully illustrates Little Badger’s work with delicate line drawings that act as chapter headings. Intergenerational relationships (with relatives both alive and Below) form the basis of this wonderful novel, as does Shane’s sense that her family–and their ghost animals–are looking out for her. Here’s hoping readers will receive more sequels, prequels, or spin-offs that take place in this fresh, compelling world.