In an America that’s kinda-sorta but not exactly like the one you live in now (it’s still got homework and ice cream, but also supernatural creatures), 17-year-old Elatsoe can raise the spirits of the dead.
Title: Elatsoe
Author: Darcie Little Badger
Narrator: Kinsale Drake
ISBN: 978-1646140053
Publisher: Levine Querido
Publication date: 2020
Genre(s): Fantasy, paranormal fiction
Available format(s): Print, audio. I reviewed the audio version.
Awards, honors, notable mentions: 2022 American Indian Youth Literature Honor Book
Reading level/interest level: Grades 7-12, according to Amazon
Plot summary: Much like her Lipan Apache ancestor and namesake, 17-year-old Elatsoe (or “Ellie”) can summon spirits. Typically, she uses her gift only to play with her family’s beloved old dog, Kirby, because of a well-established family rule to avoid raising human spirits.
But when her cousin Trevor dies and appears to Ellie in a dream, she begins to suspect that it was a murder and vows to investigate the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death – even if it means wielding her power like she never has before. Flanked by her family and best friend Jay, she travels to the site of Trevor’s death in Willowbee, Texas. And while Willowbee first appears to be a quaint little picture of small-town America, Ellie soon discovers that the town represents a sinister legacy of colonialism, and avenging her cousin’s death will mean confronting the evil creatures behind it all.
About the author: Darcie Little Badger (she/her), who calls herself an “Earth scientist,” holds a doctorate in oceanography, but is also a writer of fiction. Outside of Elatsoe, Little Badger’s work has been published in anthologies and her sophomore YA novel, A Snake Falls to Earth, was published in 2021. Like her characters, Little Badger is an enrolled member of the Lipan Apache tribe (Little Badger, n.d.).
Critical review: If I had to summarize Elatsoe with a single word, it would be “subversive.” At every turn, it challenges the expectations created by its predecessors in young adult literature. It defies a clear genre label; it is a murder mystery, a paranormal urban fantasy, a coming-of-age story, and more – the last third of the book even leans into horror. The narrative structure, which intersperses Elatsoe’s (Ellie’s) family history with her present-day adventure, is an homage to Lipan Apache storytelling. There is a loving friendship, but no romantic implications, between Ellie, who is aroace, and her best friend, a boy named Jay. Ellie has a great relationship with her parents, who never, ever dismiss her suspicions that her cousin was murdered but wholly believe and support her instead, throughout the entire story. All of the other words I could use to describe this book seem to contradict each other. It is soft, warm, spooky (even chilling!), all at once. It is like nothing I have ever read before. So, in a word, subversive!
Although the story is told in the third-person perspective and not first-person, Diné narrator Kinsale Drake embodied Ellie for me. Her narration is youthful and reasonably “teenage” sounding (at the time of recording, she was only 21) but never immature. In fact, it seemed to have an air of maturity that solidified Ellie as a thoughtful, compassionate teen. Drake’s voice seems to swell with love and affection in passages about Ellie’s late dog Kirby, which only made their special bond all the more believable and touching.
Related programming ideas: As asexual characters are a minority in fiction, Elatsoe and other YA books featuring protagonists who are ace (e.g., Loveless by Alice Oseman) could be included in teen programming for Ace Week in late October. I am envisioning a fun celebration of ace characters and a resource presentation from the local Pride center. In addition, Elatsoe has the added bonus of supernatural beings including vampires, faeries, and ghosts, which might get readers in the Halloween spirit around the same time as well.
Brief booktalk: In an America that’s kinda-sorta but not exactly like the one you live in now (it’s still got homework and ice cream, but also supernatural creatures), 17-year-old Elatsoe can raise the spirits of the dead. And it turns out that she’ll have to rely on that power to investigate the death of her cousin, whom she strongly suspects was murdered. In this book, you’ll follow Elatsoe, her family, and her best friend Jay on her road trip across Texas to the small town of Willowbee. Though unassuming at first glance, Willowbee is built on a rotting foundation, and the truth about its inhabitants – and their victims – just might break through the surface.
Potential challenges: Very rightly, Elatsoe makes no apologies for its searing, unforgiving portrayal of white supremacy and colonialism; however, for this very reason, it could face challenges from groups that align themselves with these “values.”
Reason for inclusion: An overwhelming number of online reviewers criticized the categorization of this book as a young adult title, claiming that it reads more like a middle-grade novel than a young adult one. Many feel that Ellie’s narrative voice makes her sound only twelve or thirteen years old when she is canonically seventeen; some even mistakenly assume that she is just twelve. I’d recommend that these critics listen to the audiobook, as Kinsale Drake’s voice sounds appropriately mature for Elatsoe’s age. In addition, these reviews suggest an inability to think expansively and accept that youth growing up in different cultures might act differently to those in the dominant one. I’m including this book in my collection as a challenge to those criticisms and because it dares to show a different model of the teen years.
References:
Drake, K. (2022). About Kinsale. https://kinsaledrake.com/about
Little Badger, D. (n.d.). About me & contact information. https://darcielittlebadger.wordpress.com/about/
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