Dust Girl (review)

It's 1935 and Callie LeRoux's got the dust pneumonia in her lungs, but her half-crazed mother refuses to leave their home in Slow Run, Kansas, despite the fact that everyone else lit out of their drought-stricken town a long time ago. A wicked dust storm brings a stranger to Callie's door, a man with starry eyes who informs her that her father—who Callie thought was merely a black jazz musician who left her nothing but her mixed-race heritage and a heartbroken mother—is also a fairy prince, imprisoned by his people for falling in love with a mortal. Additionally, her mother, who Callie had thought was lost in the storm, has now been taken as well, and Callie herself is in grave danger. An attack by fairies in the form of giant grasshoppers further convinces Callie of the truth, and she sets out with her new friend Jack, a scrappy white boy familiar with the road, to find her folks. Unfortunately, deceitful spirits and otherworldly beings aren't the only obstacles they encounter as Callie's dark skin brings out the all-too-human specter of bigotry in the small towns they pass. The Dust Bowl era is brilliantly brought to life here with intensely vivid prose and nods to both jazz and folk music, while the supernatural element is believably woven into what is essentially a story of a girl's coming of age. Callie is looking less for her parents than for herself, and her transition from a mixed-raced girl barely "passing" to one confident both in her heritage and her future is keenly felt; the cover image a girl with no discernible hint of African ancestry is therefore immensely disappointing as it fails to indicate the very real racial issues to which the book points. Regardless, this is still an intriguing blend of fairy lore and historical fiction that will please fans of both.