EL NINO

EL NINO by Pam Munoz Ryan. Illustrated by Joe Cepeda

Most of us are familiar with the name Pam Munoz Ryan author of the fantastic books Echo, Esperanza Rising, Solimar, and many more. El Nino is her latest release to hit the shelves, and it does not disappoint.

EL Nino is a book intermixed with reality and fantasy that leaves the reader deciding if the fantasy portion actually occurred to the main character or not.

 Kai Sosa is mourning the loss of his sister, Cali, an extremely talented swimmer who had the possibility of the Olympics in her future. It doesn't make any sense that she drowned even if she was swimming in the ocean. Now, Kai is expected to fill Cali's shoes and carry on the family swimming dynasty. The only problem, he can't get his times up to where they should be, and he's feeling like he's failing Cali's memory. Beat down by his grief, he finds a book that Cali had checked out of the library multiple times about an underwater kingdom of mermaliens off of the coast of California where Kai and his family live. The mermaliens are mythical creatures who collect and store the tears people cry into the ocean. They honor the memory of grief and loss and keep the emotions locked away in their library. Their kingdom is now under siege by an enemy who wants to release the grief emotions back into the world overwhelming it. Kai is swept up in the crisis and beyond surprising is the fact that Cali is at the heart of it all.

EL Nino is an extremely creative story dealing with loss and grief and how it can affect someone.

HEADS UP- This book has light magic in it that is borderline superheroish. It is a little reminiscent of Wonder Woman with her power and background. Part way in, the book was feeling a bit cheesy to me. Then everything snapped into place, and it was actually quite moving.

 El Nino touches on the warming of the ocean waters/climate change resulting in phenomenons like El Nino. It also mentions evolution - specifically that humans evolved from fish.