Book Review: The Last Cuentista,* by Donna Barba Higuera, published October 12, ’21, 326 pages (Kindle edition), Lexile 730, recommended for ages 10 and up, or grades 5-9. Please note: this title is not yet in the Pageturner library and will require student requests, made per class, to purchase it.
A WORLD WITHOUT STORIES IS LOST. A culture without its stories is effectively canceled. “Throughout history, people have been “canceled” because of their gender, the color of their skin, or because they disagreed with the powers that be. Often they faced [and continue to face] much worse than an online hate mob or being dropped from Netflix. They were thrown out of their homes, firebombed, even burned at the stake. From historical rewritings to Hollywood blacklists, the trend of cancel culture has a rich and varied past.” (1) Canceling a people’s stories must, sooner or later--unless those stories are somehow revived, as Hebrew had once vanished and was after revived—cancel the people, too.
This is a dystopian sci-fi fantasy beginning, at first, in the near future: 2061. Our protagonist is 12-year old Petra Peña, an Hispanic girl growing up in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Author Higuera has imbued her novel with resonances of her own home in central California: a fire always smells of piñon, while her grandmother’s cocoa is redolent with cinnamon and maybe a bit of grit. The image of her grandmother is so like Frida Kahlo’s photos, with a white flowing dress and her thick black hair wrapped in living flowers of the southwest. Sage is her signature, along with the cactus flower and creosote. Her abuela is a cuentista, a storyteller. Grandma Lita carries and shares Latino and American culture intertwined, as all the mnemonically trained poets we collectively now call Homer carried both the history and myths of ancient Greece.
Very soon, Halley’s Comet is going to strike Earth and there is nowhere safe, so a select few have been chosen to leave the planet for the skies, Petra’s family among them because her mother is a biologist and her father, a geologist—expertise that will be needed in seeding a new world. The public, government hopes, will remain unaware of the impending disaster that will eliminate them all. Petra’s grandma Lita is staying behind; she soothes Petra’s heartbreak about leaving her by telling her a traditional tale of Halley’s Comet. The comet, she says, is a blind sky snake always seeking to be reunited with its mother, Earth. She makes it sound like a naturally good thing, although it will end Earth; Lita’s grandmother sees much farther than Earth. Petra wants to become a cuentista in her grandmother’s footsteps, even though in the face of world catastrophe such an avocation may seem fatuous. A victim of retinitis pigmentosa (2), an incurable, progressive eye disease so far merely limiting her peripheral vision, she and her family are acutely aware she would not have been chosen to be saved, had her condition been known. Retinitis pigmentosa is a genetically related disease. Petra describes her lack of peripheral vision as “looking through a toilet paper roll.” When Higuera’s prose is not nearly poetical, it’s straightforward and refreshing. It also carries the weight of ritual coupled with nature, and memory:
“LITA TOSSES ANOTHER PIÑON LOG ONTO the fire. Sweet smoke drifts past us into the starry sky. Her knees crack as she sits back down on the blanket next to me. The cup of hot chocolate with cinnamon she’s made me sits untouched this time. ‘I have something I want you to take with you on your trip, Petra.’ Lita reaches into her sweater pocket. ‘Since I won’t be there for your thirteenth birthday ...’ She holds out a silver pendant in the shape of a sun. Its center is filled with a flat black stone. ‘If you hold it up to the sun, its light glows through the obsidian. I take it from her hand and hold it up, but there’s no sun. Only the moon. Sometimes I try to imagine I can see things I really can’t. But I’m sure a faint glow filters through the middle of the stone. I move the pendant back and forth. It disappears completely when I move it too far from the center of my vision. When I look back, Lita is motioning to an identical pendant around her neck. ‘You know,’ she says, ‘Yucatecos believe obsidian holds magic. A doorway to bring lost ones together.’ She purses her lips. Her brown skin wrinkles toward her nose like cracked bark on a tree. ‘They shouldn’t force me to go,’ I say. ‘You have to, Petra.’”
Petra tells her abuela she, too, will be a storyteller, despite her parents having chosen her to be a botanist/geologist like them, and Lita offers expert advice:
“ ‘A storyteller, yes. It’s in your blood.’ She leans in. ‘But just like me? No, mija. You need to discover who you are and be that.’ ‘What if I ruin your stories?’ I ask. Lita cups my chin in her soft, brown hand. ‘You can’t ruin them. They’ve traveled hundreds of years, and through many people to find you. Now, go make them your own.’”
The very next day, Petra and her family will board a spaceship waiting in Colorado, hidden in a national forest. En route to the launch site, Petra agonizes about all the people being left behind. She’s also seen a TV presentation about a group called the Collective, who believe that eliminating all differences and diversity in humanity is the only path to peace. The night before their departure, in what her parents had thought was a private conversation, her mother remarks that in each of three ships there are 146 assigned individuals—and 146 Monitors. The Monitors will remain awake during the 380-year voyage among the stars, living in a simulated Earth-type environment while the rest are asleep, in stasis to avoid aging. The Monitors are expected to age normally, bearing children, all of whom will eventually die before the starship reaches the planet Sagan, named, obviously, for Carl Sagan. (3) Petra overhears her mother say the number 146 is just enough diversity required to prevent inbreeding over 380 years, expressing her opinion that sacrificing the monitors like this is “morbid.” On this score, the monitors will prove to have ideas of their own.
The first spacecraft has already jumped into hyperspace as they’re boarding the second. But the population has been alerted to pending catastrophe and their location discovered. She can hear their ship being attacked with crude weapons as they take off—the third ship is swamped and never leaves. Her own craft leaves with far fewer people than had been planned.
Placed in a capsule and surrounded by a transfixing stasis gel, Petra expects to be put to sleep immediately and programmed for expertise in botany and geology, but learns her elective, mythology, has been deleted. Before she falls asleep, however, a kindly monitor named Ben tells her he’s downloading HIS entire constellation of reading material, called a librex, into her program. Much later, she’s half-awake when Ben, now an elderly man, tries to finish the download but is “purged” for his interference. When she’s again fully awake, 380 years have indeed passed and they are on the planet Sagan. But she’s supposed to be Zeta-1, and there are only Zetas 2, 3, and 4 in the tween room. Javier isn’t there. Soon she’ll learn that nobody who should be there is there. She’ll find empty pods bearing her parents’ names, and many more besides.
The Collective has taken over everything. Where once aboard their ship there’d been a park, and her mother’s sapling of Earth’s oldest tree, Hyperion, with living plants, lap pools, and an apparent blue “sky” overhead for the monitors to live normal lives—now there is only stark emptiness, a vast whiteness. There is constant cleaning of what is already pristine, but no art, no music, no hint of creativity. The monitors have undergone some serious changes, as well:
“I swallow hard. The person in front of me barely looks human. She looks more like the ghost shrimp I saw once at the Albuquerque aquarium...[S]he’s both beautiful...and horrifying, her veins glowing red and blue under pale ski. Her darker cheekbones arch too high on her face, leaving a shadowed valley to her jawline. And her lips, the color of lilacs, are too full.
“Her eyes are so light I can see spiderweb capillaries behind her irises. She smiles.” And they all have violet eyes. This is Nyla, the Chancellor, a soft-spoken monster who spouts Unity, Harmony, Sacrifice, Commitment, Accord--imitating the huge rolling screen continuously flashing in the public area, the Collective version of Times Square. Any suggestion of an individual idea, a single sentence ending with an apparent question mark, results in disappearance.
While Petra is still 13, she learns her little brother Javier was removed from stasis long ago and is now an old man named Epsilon-5, with whom she is assigned to work in her new lab. In brief excursions to the surface, she’s also discovered a highly deadly plant. Her job now is to extract its lethality and intensify it as a weapon. She further learns, in overhearing conversations, that the First Arrivers—those who’d traveled in the first ship—are alive somewhere on the planet. Because of their epidermal changes, the monitors can no longer survive on Sagan, although Petra and the other Zetas are fine in the natural environment. Nyla intends to leave Sagan and find another “Goldilocks planet” where they can survive without protective gear. She also intends to destroy the humans on Sagan, just in case the Collective ever decide to return. The depth of Collective depravity knows no bounds. And, btw, the monitors have consumed all the food and water intended for the survivors’ use before the planet is effectively terra-formed.
There are too many twists and turns for me to divulge the novel in its entirety. Suffice it to say, Petra and her little adopted family of ragtag children will find better as the Collective abandons Sagan:
“It’s only a few notes, but mixed with the soft rush of the wind and the smoke upon it, I hear ... the strum of a distant guitar, and laughter... ... this is the end of the story for me, the wind carried it off far away into the stars.”
In her Afterword, the author offers her thanks “to all storytellers, editors, and those in the art of making books. Thank you for your contributions and hard work creating the most precious thing we take into the future.” I applaud her sentiment, and I’m sure tweens will be captivated by her tale.
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*The Last Cuentista was named one of the best children's books of the year by BookPage,[11] The Boston Globe,[12] the Chicago Public Library,[13] Kirkus,[5] the New York Public Library,[14] Publishers Weekly,[15] School Library Journal,[16] TIME,[17] and The Wall Street Journal.[18]
Awards and honors for The Last Cuentista: Winner of the John Newbery MedaL, WINNER OF the Pura Belpré Award, TIME Best of the Year, Wall Street Journal Best of the Year, Minneapolis Star Tribune Best of the Year, Boston Globe Best of the Year, BookPage Best of the Year, Publishers Weekly Best of the Year, School Library Journal Best of the Year, Kirkus Reviews Best of the Year, Bank Street Best of the Year, Chicago Public Library’s Best of the Best, New York Public Library Best of the Year, Junior Library Guild gold standard, Cybils Award Finalist https://www.levinequerido.com/the-last-cuentista
(1) This site offers 10 examples of cancel culture throughout history.
10. As early as the 5th BCE, ostracism was embedded in the law of ancient Greece. “...[W]rongdoers were sent into exile by popular vote. Cleisthenes – the “father of Athenian democracy” – is widely regarded to have created the punishment... It took at least 6000 total votes for the process to be valid. Athenian officials would then sort the shards into piles, and whoever received the most votes was banished from the city.” [At least they voted, right?]
9. Michael Servetus, burned at the stake for opposing Protestant doctrine.
8. “The Hollywood Blacklist was the cancel culture of the 1940s and 50s...”
7. Julian Percy. “For years, people tried to erase the legacy of Percy Julian. The Alabama-born chemist faced multiple setbacks throughout his life due to his skin color. Even though his pioneering work saved numerous people’s lives, Julian is still a relatively unknown figure in US history... One chemical helped produce fire-retardant foam in fire extinguishers and saved the lives of thousands of soldiers during the Second World War. He also found a way to create artificial hormones. Due to his research, ludicrously expensive drugs suddenly became affordable for millions of people... One chemical [he developed from soybeans] helped produce fire-retardant foam in fire extinguishers and saved the lives of thousands of soldiers during the Second World War. He also found a way to create artificial hormones. Due to his research, ludicrously expensive drugs suddenly became affordable for millions of people. [In Illinois his family] “faced several attacks – including arson and someone firebombing their house – but Julian and his wife refused to move.” [Just one example of MANY]
6. Lise Meitner, nuclear physics—victim of the misogyny of White Supremacy. [Also just one of MANY]
5. “Ignaz Semmelweis should have been a medical hero, but his colleagues’ pride got in the way. The Hungarian doctor was the first person to advocate that people wash their hands... He studied two maternity wards at the General Hospital in Vienna. One ward was run by doctors and medical students; the other was staffed by midwives. Semmelweis quickly discovered that the death rate on the first ward was five times higher than that on the second ward. [The difference? Midwives washed their hands.]... The Hungarian scientist should have become the founding father of modern hygiene... [instead], his colleagues hit back and he was kicked out of the hospital. By 1865, he had been sent to a mental asylum where he was beaten and, in a sad twist of irony, probably died of infection.
4. “Cancel culture in the 1800s was brutal, far worse than the online pile-ons of today. Respected Victorians spent much of their lives locked in feuds.” [So much for Victorian “gentility”]
3. Galileo, victim of Catholic persecution
2. Cultural Imperialism, the Canceling of Entire Cultures
“European colonizers were notorious for destroying the cultures of the countries they took over. When Britain colonized India, they erased much of the existing heritage and imprinted their cultural dominance. The British colonizers often claimed that they were “civilizing” the natives. The same rhetoric was used by German officials who set about to “Prussify” the Slavic people of Eastern Europe. It was also mirrored by the European empires in their treatment of Native Americans. [In America, manifest destiny not only demanded the elimination of indigenous peoples, or their complete submission to Catholism and White culture, it also demanded that millions of buffalo be erased, as well. Racism, too, has ever tried to eliminate all the good Black people do—see #7.]
1. Alan Turing, the Computer Scientist Persecuted for being a homosexual
[I would reverse #2 and #1, sheerly for the enormous scope of resulting damage and its persistence today.] Read further at: https://listverse.com/2021/05/21/top-10-historical-examples-of-cancel-culture/
For another great list from this site, see “Top 10 Plans Hitler Would Have Put In Motion If The Nazis Had Won” Excerpt: https://listverse.com/2021/05/21/top-10-historical-examples-of-cancel-culture/
(2) Retinitis pigmentosa. Symptoms, causes and treatments
“[It] is a progressive disease that affects the retina, affecting the peripheral vision with a slow evolution resulting on tunnel vision. Since there is no known cure, eventually it transforms into complete blindness.” [Actually, most people don’t go completely blind but will become “legally blind.” ...Retinitis pigmentosa is a group of hereditary origin genetic disorders that affect the retina, which is, the part of the eye that transforms light into nerve impulses. Therefore, patients with retinitis pigmentosa lose night vision in the early stages, and later lose peripheral vision, and then a gradual loss in their abilities to drive cars, read and recognize faces, even during the day... are patients advised to wear sunglasses with UV protection to avoid strong sunlight when going outside, and they can also wear them indoors in places with intense lighting.
“In extreme cases, you can choose to take advantage of technological advances in artificial vision. Artificial vision devices are under development for patients with severe or total vision loss. These are special glasses that feature a small camera with a video processor, which converts images into stimulation patterns that send information to an implanted microchip in the patient’s retina.” Read more at: https://progencell.com/blog/retinitis-pigmentosa/
(3) CARL SAGAN
(“Born November 9, 1934, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.—died December 20, 1996, Seattle, Washington) was an American astronomer and science writer. A popular and influential figure in the United States, he was controversial in scientific, political, and religious circles for his views on extraterrestrial intelligence, nuclear weapons, and religion. Quick Facts: Awards And Honors: Pulitzer Prize (1978)
Notable Works: Contact, Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
Subjects Of Study: amino acid, chemical synthesis, extraterrestrial intelligence, extraterrestrial life, origin of life
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