Dust Girl

April 15, 2012
A mixed-race girl in Dust Bowl Kansas discovers her long-lost father isn't just a black man: He's a fairy. Callie has been passing as white her whole life, helping her Mama in rundown Slow Run, Kan. But now it doesn't seem to matter that she keeps her "good skin" out of the sun and softens her "coarse" hair, because it seems everyone's left the dust-choked town. Even Mama is gone now, vanished in a preternatural dust storm that summoned a strange man who tells Callie secrets of her never-met father. Soon Callie's walking the dusty roads with Jack, a ragged white kid. If Callie's dad is a fairy, then the two young'uns will just have to go to fairyland to find him. Callie and Jack dodge fairy politics and dangers, from grasshopper people to enchanted food to magic movie theaters--but the conventional dangers are no less threatening. Plenty of run-of-the-mill humans in 1935 Kansas don't like black girls or beggars, hobos or outsiders. With a historical note and a Woody Guthrie soundtrack, this novel does a fine job of blending a splendidly grounded Dust Bowl setting with a paranormal adventure. It's really too bad that the cover art depicts a white girl with flyaway hair, rather than Callie as written, a mixed girl who stops passing as white halfway through the story. Callie learns to be open about herself but her own cover art doesn't. This cracking good mixture of magic and place will leave readers eagerly awaiting the sequel. (Fantasy. 12-14)

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June 1, 2012

Gr 6-9-Calliope LeRoux begins hearing voices the day her mother vanishes into the swirling dust of the worst storm in Kansas history. From Baya, a mysterious stranger she rescues from the deadly tempest, Callie discovers that she must travel to California to find her parents. She also learns that her father, whom she's never met, is a fairy who aggravated a feud between warring tribes by running off with her mortal mother. Moreover, there exists a prophecy about a half-blood girl with powers to manipulate doors between worlds, and it seems that Callie fits the bill. As she is pursued by dangerous otherworldly creatures and accompanied by Jack, a hobo boy with his own agenda, her quest becomes increasingly deadly. Much weighs on her success. The story of warring fairy factions is not new, nor is that of the fae girl who is instrumental in their fate. Yet, Zettel puts a fresh, imaginative spin on the old tale. Period details about the Depression-era dust bowl supply an authentic, atmospheric feel, as does the first-person narrative. Nonstop action will keep readers hooked. Some loose threads remain, but these will hopefully be knitted together in sequels.-Alissa J. LeMerise, Oxford Public Library, MI

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2012
"We're not in Fairyland! We're in Kansas!" exclaims Calliope, but as it happens, she's wrong and right. In this story, Kansas is Fairyland. The Dust Bowl, the Great Depression, and Celtic fairy-lore come together when Callie, daughter of the owner of a small hotel in Slow Run, Kansas, discovers that when she really gives herself over to making music, the fairies come after her. Then her Mama is whisked away in a whirl of dust and magic, and Callie sets off to retrieve her. But as Callie and Jack, fellow traveller and companion, traverse the prairie fleeing supernaturally voracious locusts, a brutal "vigilante man," and starvation itself, Callie learns she's of royal fairy stock (her long-absent father being not just a charming African American jazz musician but a prince of fairyland). Zettel cleverly uses the folk songs and jazz of the period in this atmospheric 1930s Americanization of Celtic folklore. Racial issues are treated rather obviously (Callie is half black; Jack's Jewish), and the story's plot turns are at times both too familiar and too fabulous -- but even so this is an intelligent, imaginative concoction with a vivid setting and an engaging protagonist. deirdre f. baker

(Copyright 2012 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

July 1, 2012
The Dust Bowl, the Great Depression, and Celtic fairy-lore come together when Callie learns that her long-absent father was not just a charming African American jazz musician but a prince of fairyland. When her Mama is whisked away in a whirl of dust and magic, Callie sets off to retrieve her. An intelligent, imaginative concoction with a vivid setting and an engaging protagonist.

(Copyright 2012 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)