The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: Algonquin Young Readers

Genre: Monster, Myths and Folklore, Supernatural

Audience: Children

Tags:  Afro-Tobagonian and Indo-Tobagonian characters, Character with Speech Disorder (selective mutisim)

Takes Place in: Trinidad/Tobago

Content Warnings: Animal Death, Child Endangerment, Death (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

Corinne La Mer claims she isn’t afraid of anything. Not scorpions, not the boys who tease her, and certainly not jumbies. They’re just tricksters made up by parents to frighten their children. Then one night Corinne chases an agouti all the way into the forbidden forest, and shining yellow eyes follow her to the edge of the trees. They couldn’t belong to a jumbie. Or could they? When Corinne spots a beautiful stranger at the market the very next day, she knows something extraordinary is about to happen. When this same beauty, called Severine, turns up at Corinne’s house, danger is in the air. Severine plans to claim the entire island for the jumbies. Corinne must call on her courage and her friends and learn to use ancient magic she didn’t know she possessed to stop Severine and to save her island home.

I spent part of my childhood in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, where I frequently heard scary stories about Jumbies, the spirits that haunt the Caribbean. There were the Douens with their backwards feet and wide straw hats, the glowing eyes of the La Diablesse, and Duppies that could be kept away with salt. And while it was enough to give me nightmares as a child, being able to read a book that contained all these creepy creatures from my youth was nostalgic and wonderful.


Thanks for the childhood nightmares Tales of the Caribbean (published by the Wright Group)

The Jumbies is based on the Haitian fairytale, the Magic Orange Tree, and contains underlying themes of colonization, the clash of two cultures, and environmentalism. But if you're worried about helpless princesses and ham-handed messages about not littering, never fear, Tracey Baptiste is far too talented an author to create some sort of terrible Snow White/Ferngully mishmash. Sure, there are still plenty of fun fantasy tropes, monsters, magic, and the dead mom cliché (because that's apparently some sort of requirement for heroines in fairy tails) but there's also a lovely lack of distressed damsels, one dimensional villains, and black and white morality. Baptiste doesn't try to feed her young readers any sort of over-simplified nonsense about how good people are pure and beautiful and only capable of doing good things. Instead, the characters are complicated and flawed, and right and wrong aren't always clear cut.


Okay, but seriously, what does Disney have against moms?

The main character, Corinne, is a young girl who lives with her father at the edge of a Jumbie-filled forest. Her mother died when she was very young but she left her daughter three very special gifts, her necklace, an orange tree, and a gift for growing things. Predictably, Corinne must use all three to discover the truth about herself and fight the evil threatening her home. And let me tell you, I wish I was as awesome as Corinne. She's smart, self-sufficient, and incredibly brave. In the original fairy tale on which The Jumbies is based, the protagonist is a passive character that things just sort of happen to, but Corrine is proactive about her dire situation, and willing to fight the monsters herself instead of waiting for rescue. The helpless heroines in tales of old don't hold a candle to the courageous Corinne. And let's be honest "wait and hope things get better" is not the greatest message to give to kids. Don't wait to be saved, rescue yourself.



There's nothing that makes me feel more inadequate than a kid 20 years my junior who's tougher than I am

That isn't to say Baptiste is telling the reader to only rely on themselves. As tough as Corrine is, sometimes she needs the aid of her friends, in this case a pair of mischievous orphan brothers, Bouki and Malik, and a shy young girl named Dru. They pull her up at her lowest moment, and stand by her side when she confronts Severine. It's a nice balance. Corrine is brave and independent, but is still able to rely on others when she needs to, while Dru, the girly-girl to Corrine's tomboy, is shy and timid, without being weak and helpless, and learns to be braver and more independent. She may not want to handle scorpions or run into the forest by herself, but Dru's still far from being a distressed damsel. Then there's Bouki and Malik, who are used to relying only on each other but learn that getting help from others is a sign of strength, not weakness.

Interestingly, most of the Jumbies aren't portrayed as being good or evil, they simply want to protect their forest home from the humans who've invaded it. But unlike more heavy-handed environmental stories, Baptiste takes a more nuanced approach, and doesn't paint these issues as black and white. Think more Lorax (the book, not the film) less Captain Planet. The humans aren't evil, selfish, or greedy, but they're still destroying the forest homes of the Jumbies who've lived there for thousands of years. Nor are the Jumbies evil per se, they just want to protect their home from the human invaders.  Even Severine, the big bad of the story, isn't completely unsympathetic. As evil as she is, she clearly loved her dear sister and is hurting from her loss. Severine is lashing out for a reason, and while it by no means justifies the terrible things she does, it at least explains them.

This book is perfect for younger kids who are tired of Cinderella and Snow White, and like their stories a little spooky. It has a strong female lead, fighting to protect her father and her home, a cast of fun supporting characters, and one truly creepy villain.

Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova

Formats: Print, digital

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Genre: Dark Fantasy, Occult

Audience: Y/A

Diversity: Ecuadorian author, Hispanic/Latinx characters, Puerto Rican characters, South Asian character, Bisexual characters

Takes Place in: New York City, USA

Content Warnings: Abelism, Animal Death, Body Shaming, Bullying, Child Abuse, Child Endangerment, Death, Forced Captivity, Gaslighting, Gore, Kidnapping, Torture, Violence

(Highlight to view)

Blurb:

Nothing says Happy Birthday like summoning the spirits of your dead relatives. Alex is a bruja, the most powerful witch in a generation...and she hates magic. At her Deathday celebration, Alex performs a spell to rid herself of her power. But it backfires. Her whole family vanishes into thin air, leaving her alone with Nova, a brujo boy she can't trust. A boy whose intentions are as dark as the strange marks on his skin. The only way to get her family back is to travel with Nova to Los Lagos, a land in-between, as dark as Limbo and as strange as Wonderland...

Alex is about to celebrate her Deathday, a huge party that's thrown when a young bruja or brujo first gets their powers. Her entire extended family will be there to help her bind and control her newfound abilities. Everyone seems thrilled, especially her mother and older sister Lula; everyone that is, except for Alex. She views magic as a curse rather than a blessing, so she's pretty upset when she discovers that, no surprise (it's Y/A fiction after all), she's essentially the most powerful bruja they've seen in generations, an encantrix whose magic is vast and broad. Most brujas are limited to one or two abilities, like healing or seeing the future, but Alex can pretty much do anything. In a misguided attempt to get rid of her power, she accidentally banishes not only all her living relatives but her dead ancestors as well to the Limbo-like land of Las Lagos. Oops.

Okay, so admittedly the whole powerful chosen one thing does sound kind of Mary Sue-ish, especially the part about not wanting her super special powers. "Oh, poor little main character, you get all these awesome powers, how awful for you!" said no reader ever. Well, Alex has a pretty good reason for hating her magic, and it's not the typical "Oh, being perfect is so hard~" B.S. You see, magic isn't some consequence free wish-fulfilling super power, it's born from sacrifice. Magic drains the user and causes them physical pain. The more powerful the spell, the more you'll suffer. Healing someone's else's headache means you'll end up with a black eye. A protection spell could cause you to pass out. Some magic can even drain the life force of the user, slowly killing them. Magic is also the reason Alex's father disappeared, destroying her family. She has to watch her mother grieve and suffer every day, trying to raise three girls on her own.  It traumatized her when she was seven and saw the re-animated corpse of her Aunt Rosaria. Magic killed her pet cat, plagues her with nightmares, and forces her to keep her best friend at arm's length. So Alex's aversion to her powers is understandable, I wouldn't want to use magic either after all that.

 Thanks Magic!

            

Love triangles are another tired trope in young adult fiction that I'm sick of seeing. It's just pointless and needless drama that derails the story. Can't everyone just be polyamorous and get along? A threesome would clearly solve this problem. It's especially irritating when one (or both) of the love interests is a mysterious bad boy who appears out of nowhere and seduces the main character, despite them having nothing in common. Just have a one-night stand and get it out of your system, he clearly isn't relationship material, damn. So many problems in YA fiction could be solved by just sleeping with everyone... and I just realized why I probably shouldn't be giving advice to teenagers. Okay, forget everything I just said. Love triangles are still stupid though, and when I first learned Labyrinth Lost had one (with a mysterious bad boy no less) I let out one of those long, exasperated groans that makes me sound like a slow-moving zombie that just discovered it's going to have run after its prey. So, basically me as a zombie. Running is the worst. So are pointless romantic sub-plots.



THE WORST

Nova, the smug, douchey, "bad boy" brujo who kept flirting with Alex was about as obnoxious as you'd expect, no surprise there. He was all dark and tortured and rude, bleh. But this is where Córdova surprised me. Because Nova's romantic rival is a South Asian girl named Rishi, Alex's longtime friend. Okay, so a multiracial, bisexual love triangle, that's not something you see every day. And it's not just queer baiting either! The two girls are genuinely romantically interested in each other. Plus, Rishi is so awesome; she's brave, weird, loyal, funny--exactly the kind of person I'd want to be friends with. When Alex is in trouble she doesn't even hesitate to dive in and rescue her, because that's what friends do. My interest was cautiously piqued, but I was still wary. Was this going to turn into a huge drama-filled plot point that derails the story? But again Córdova exceeded my expectations, because the love triangle is barely even there. Yes, Alex ends up with one of them, and yeah, the bickering of the two suitors could be annoying, but Alex's entire focus is on saving her family, as it should be. Yes, she has crazy teenage hormones and starts lusting after her best friend and the mysterious Nova, but her focus never wavers from the task at hand, and she pushes her romantic impulses to the side. Alex even gets irritated that Nova is wasting so much time flirting and Rishi keeps getting jealous, when there are clearly much bigger fish to fry. I don't usually get invested in romantic subplots, and I'm almost embarrassed to admit this, but I went full on fan girl and found myself shipping Rishi and Alex the entire time (much to the chagrin of my poor wife who had to deal with my high pitched squees every few minutes). I feel like I need to write Córdova an apology letter for ever doubting her, because she has somehow managed to pull off the least annoying love triangle I've ever read in YA fiction. Hell, even Nova got called out for his arrogant dick act, which I was also not expecting. So, Kudos to you Córdova.



A love of triangle actually made me squee for the first time in history.

The whole romantic subplot, if you can even call it that, is thankfully a pretty minor story element, and the story's main focus is on family and identity. Alex's relationship with her sisters, mother, aunts and the other women in her family is incredibly well written and touching, and one of my favorite aspects of the book. It's just so wonderfully refreshing to see a YA novel that focus on the bonds between women and familial love rather than girls fighting over stupid boys. Lula, her beautiful and bossy older sister is great, a force unto herself, overflowing with love and magic, and always ready to take charge. I love Lula. Her younger sister, Rose, is a psychic with the whole creepy child vibe going on, an incredibly clever and intelligent young girl with a sweet tooth and a mischievous streak. She doesn't get as much page time, as she's more reserved than her two sisters. And of course Alex's mother, Carmen, a strong woman and loving parent, holds their little family together. They're not perfect, and they might bicker, but they're all fiercely loyal and protective of each other, and Alex's strong connection with her family is what gives her the strength to journey through Los Lagos, and protects her from the perils of the dark, magical Limbo. 

Córdova's world building is another strong point of the story. Los Lagos is probably tied with Paheli from The Gauntlet for the coolest fantasy world I've read about this year. It's enchantingly creepy, beautiful, and weird.  Interestingly, it reminds me of two other fantasies titled after the Minotaur's legendary prison, Jim Henson's Labyrinth and Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth (with a little bit of the Wizard of Oz thrown in for good measure, even if it breaks the themed naming). The only downside to having a creative world that stands out so much is that the characters seem kind of bland in comparison. That's not to say any of the characters are poorly written or dull, it's just hard to hold a candle to the land of Los Lagos with its rivers of ghosts, burning forests, and creepy creatures. 

Córdova's world is inspired by Latin American religions and cultures to create the story's mythology, magic, and gods. The bilingual bonuses and Latina influences will be fun for anyone familiar with the language and culture, but if you're new to brujas and brujos keep in mind the ones in Labyrinth Lost resemble actual Brujeria, Santeria, and folk magic practitioners about as much as the wizards and witches in Harry Potter represent real Wiccans. For example, the Deos in the story are similar in many respects to the orixá of Santeria and the Loa form Vodou, but have no "real world" counterparts. Interestingly enough, other witches and magic users from other traditions also exist in the Labyrinth Lost universe, though we never get a chance to see them. Maybe in future Brooklyn Brujas titles.