Sheine Lende: A Prequel to Elatsoe

by Darcie Little Badger, Rovina Cai (Illustrator)

Overview

Bookpage Most Anticipated YA of 2024

Shane works with her mother and their ghost dogs, tracking down missing persons even when their families can’t afford to pay. Their own family was displaced from their traditional home years ago following a devastating flood – and the loss of Shane’s father and her grandparents. They don’t think they’ll ever get their home back.

Then Shane’s mother and a local boy go missing, after a strange interaction with a fairy ring. Shane, her brother, her friends, and her lone, surviving grandparent – who isn’t to be trusted – set off on the road to find them. But they may not be anywhere in this world – or this place in time.

Nevertheless, Shane is going to find them.

Darcie Little Badger’s Elatsoe launched her career and in the years since has become a beloved favorite. This prequel to Elatsoe, centered on Ellie’s grandmother, deepens and expands Darcie’s one-of-a-kind world and introduces us to another cast of characters that will wend their way around readers’ hearts.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781646144020
Publisher:	Levine Querido
Publication date:	04/16/2024
Series:	An Elatsoe Book , #2
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	81,864
File size:	24 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

Darcie Little Badger is a Lipan Apache writer with a PhD in oceanography. Her critically acclaimed debut novel, Elatsoe, was featured in TIME as one of the best 100 fantasy books of all time. Elatsoe also won the Locus Award for Best First Novel and was a Nebula, Ignyte, and Lodestar finalist. Her second fantasy novel, A Snake Falls to Earth, received the Newbery Honor, was a LA Times Book Prize Finalist, and was longlisted for the National Book Award. Darcie is married to a veterinarian named Taran and splits time between California and Texas.

Editorial Reviews

"A magical journey like nothing you've ever read before. Stunning!"—Chris Abouzeid at Belmont Books

[STAR] “Revelatory.” – Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred)

“With elements of Lipan Apache oral history, fantasy, and mysteries, the captivating novel Sheine Lende follows found and inherited family members as they persevere.” – Foreword (starred)

“Full of incredible magic and mystery.” – Geek Girl Authority

[STAR] “A wonderful addition to the Elatsoe universe with vital representation, worthy of any YA collection. Highly recommended.” – School Library Journal (starred)

“You don’t need to have read Darcie Little Badger’s Elatsoe to enjoy Sheine Lende, although it helps. This is a great novel to give to tweens and teens who like mysteries and fantasy but either aren’t ready for or aren’t interested in plots with romance or more mature action sequences… Darcie Little Badger is so good at what she does, and I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next." – Locus

“Inventive.” – Horn Book

“This tender, magical prequel to Elastoe features Shane, the grandmother of Elastoe, as a 17-year-old girl in the 1970s who, like Elatsoe, can also summon ghosts. Shane must use all of her gifts to find her missing mother and a missing child her mother was trying to rescue. Along the way, she must also face monsters real and internal.” – Common Sense Media

“Gritty, luminous… beguiling.” – Shelf-Awareness

“Epic.” – Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

From the Publisher

★ 04/01/2024

Gr 8 Up—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.—Emmy Neal

School Library Journal

Darcie Little Badger and narrator Kinsale Drake revisit the fantastic world of Elatsoe in this prequel. This time, listeners meet Elatsoe's grandmother, Sheine Lende, known as Shane, as a teenager when she is learning to be a supernaturally skilled tracker from her mother. Drake's steady cadence creates a storytelling mood reflecting a narrative that details family history and the struggles of the Lipan. Fascinating scientific details and mythology are combined as fairy rings are explored. When Sheine Lende's mother and a boy named Lorenza disappear, Sheine Lende must venture to other worlds to find them. Drake's tone magnifies the youthful strength of the characters. S.T.C. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine

JUNE 2024 - AudioFile

★ 2024-01-05
Two generations before the events of Elatsoe (2020), Shane, a 17-year-old Lipan Apache girl, helps her mother, Lorenza, perform volunteer search-and-rescue operations.

Familiar both with tracking to survive in the wilderness and counting change to survive under capitalism, Shane possesses the resourcefulness of an irresistible protagonist. Her practicality also provides the perfect foil for her extraordinary ability—inherited from her four-great-grandmother—to summon dead creatures, adding texture to her supernatural world. What starts out as Lorenza’s quest to locate two missing children becomes Shane’s journey through Texas, Arkansas, Colorado, and the ghostly land Below to find her mother after she disappears. While faeries and vampires inhabit Shane’s surroundings, the heart of her story is her family’s endurance despite various tragedies, including climate devastation and rich settlers’ betrayal and theft. Frequent flashbacks and late-breaking perspective changes add narrative complexity, alongside rich depictions of cultural identity, generational trauma, and community care. A secondary character’s revelatory discovery offers an empowering narrative of reclaiming one’s stolen ancestry. Shane’s protectiveness toward her younger brother, complex love for her inconstant grandfather, and sturdy bond with her mathematically minded best friend add further relationship depth. Bug enthusiasts will also find kindred spirits in Shane and new acquaintance Dr. Richards, an older Black scholar of biology, magic, and comics.

A classic fantasy adventure and a balm for any soul weary of oppression. (note on the title) (Speculative fiction. 12-18)

Kirkus Reviews