Dispatches from Terabithia

In a post-riot Toronto that the rich and privileged have fled, barricaded, and left to crumble, the inner city has had to rediscover old ways: farming, barter and herb lore. Now the monied need a harvest of bodies, so they prey upon the helpless of the streets. With nowhere to turn, a young woman must open herself to ancient truths, eternal powers, and a tragic mystery surrounding her family and bargain with the gods to save herself. My husband read this for his Caribbean Folklore class he took this term, and he’s been insisting that I read it ever since, even though I really didn’t think I’d like it that much. I was right: The dialect in this book was really difficult for me, but the traditional folk-tale structure of the story revived a lot of it. There were notes of African folklore, Anansi stories, and even a little bit of Neil Gaiman’s storytelling structure present. Not really for me, for the most part, but I can see why it was so well-loved.