Summer of the Mariposas by Guadalupe Garcia McCall

Unsure of what to do, the girls decide to bring the body back to his family. One day while they’re swimming in their favorite spot, they spot a body drifting along in the current. Summer of the Mariposas ( butterflies in Spanish, and that’s just the first of dozens of words sprinkled throughout the book) tells the tale of the five Garza girls, cinco hermanitas: Odilia is the oldest and the narrator of the story Juanita, the second oldest and the most headstrong Velia and Delia are the twins, connected by their own bond, yet just as close to their other sisters and Pita, the baby of the family.ĭue to their Papa running out on the family, the girls’ beloved Mama has been struggling to make ends meet and, as a result, the girls are more often than not left to their own devices. Fairy tale retellings are a dime a dozen, but I haven’t come across a Mexican retelling of the Odyssey before and couldn’t wait to dive right in. I am a HUGE fan of retellings and, lucky for me, there’s no shortage of them these days. Can these fantastic trials prepare Odilia and her sisters for what happens when they face their final test, returning home to the real world, where goddesses and ghosts can no longer help them? Along the way, they must outsmart a witch and her Evil Trinity: a wily warlock, a coven of vicious half-human barn owls, and a bloodthirsty livestock-hunting chupacabras. With the supernatural aid of ghostly La Llorona via a magical earring, Odilia and her little sisters travel a road of tribulation to their long-lost grandmother’s house.

But returning home to Texas turns into an odyssey that would rival Homer’s original tale. Summary: When Odilia and her four sisters find a dead body in the swimming hole, they embark on a hero’s journey to return the dead man to his family in Mexico.

Summer of the Mariposas by Guadalupe Garcia McCall