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REVIEW: SHADOWSHAPER BY DANIEL JOSE OLDER



As we count down to Halloween and Day of the Dead this week, 
The Latina Book Club will bring you some “dark and intriguing” books to stay up late with.  
Happy Reading.  And always, Read Latino!  




Scholastic
A Puerto Rican heroine, living in Brooklyn, with magical powers and zombies on her tail.  I am hooked! 

SHADOWSHAPER is a thrilling and magical YA debut by writer, editor, composer Daniel José Older. The war between good and evil has never been this creepy or terrifying. I hope this is the first of many books in a Shadowshaping series.


Book Summary:  Sierra Santiago planned to have an easy summer of making art and hanging out with her friends. But then a corpse crashes the first party of the season. Her stroke-ridden grandfather starts apologizing over and over. And when the murals in her neighborhood begin to weep real tears... Well, something more sinister than the usual Brooklyn ruckus is going on. With the help of a mysterious fellow artist named Robbie, Sierra discovers shadowshaping, a thrilling magic that infuses ancestral spirits into paintings, music, and stories. But someone is killing the shadowshapers one by one -- and the killer believes Sierra is hiding their greatest secret. Now she must unravel her family's past, take down the killer in the present, and save the future of shadowshaping for herself and generations to come.


About the Author:  Daniel José Older is the New York Times bestselling author of the Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy series from Penguin’s Roc Books and the Young Adult novel SHADOWSHAPER (Scholastic, 2015), a New York Times Notable Book of 2015, which was shortlisted for the Kirkus Prize in Young Readers’ Literature, the Andre Norton Award, the Locus, the Mythopoeic Award, the International Latino Book Award, and named one of Esquire’s 80 Books Every Person Should Read. He co-edited the Locus and World Fantasy nominated anthology Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History. His short stories and essays have appeared in the Guardian, NPR, Tor.com, Salon, BuzzFeed, and the anthologies The Fire This Time and Mothership: Tales Of Afrofuturism And Beyond, among others. Daniel has guest edited at Fireside Fiction, Catapult, Crossed Genres, and Fantasy Magazine, and served as a judge for the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, the Burt Award for Young Adult Caribbean Literature, and the PEN American Award. He has taught at St. Johns University, Voices at VONA, Boricua College, and Rikers Island among other sites. You can find his thoughts on writing, read dispatches from his decade-long career as an NYC paramedic and hear his music at http://danieljoseolder.net/, on youtube and @djolder on twitter. Visit him at http://ghoststar.net/




Book Awards for SHADOWSHAPER:
A Top Ten YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults Selection
A Top Ten ALA Quick Pick
A Kirkus Prize Finalist
An Andre Award Nominee
A New York Times Notable Children's Book
An NPR Best Book of the Year
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year


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