Dust Girl

People say "Don't judge a book by its cover." BUT I do this literally all the time. You have to be an author that i'm interested in, a subject I really really like, or have a decent concept for me to ignore the cover of the book and jump right into it.

This is not the case of one of those... though in the same vein, the title of the series -not the actual book title- caught my eye.

Title: Dust Girl
Author: Sarah Zettel

"Dust Girl" is book one of The American Fairy Trilogy. 

The AMERICAN fairy trilogy. THAT is something new to me. There has only been one other book series that i've read that had any books focusing on the folklore of the Americas. That specifically would be O.R. Melling's "The book of dreams" in the Faerie Chronicles series. This however is specific to AMERICA and not just north america. The good ol U.S. of A.

This book follows the story of a girl named Callie as she finds herself in the Dust Bowl in the 30s. She has a lot going against her in the world. She is a girl, a teenager, a bastard child (born out of wedlock and her father is not present), and bi-racial. (In the years that the book takes place in, she would be called Mulatto or worse if anyone found out, and it is presented that if people knew that her father was a black man... let alone a musician... she would lose any "privilege" she stood to have.)

Life is hard for Callie. She doesn't know herself. Her world is a hard one, living with her single mother who pines and promises that her daddy will be coming back for them someday, and being in the middle of the dust bowl. The whole town has disappeared around them and it's very hard to keep money in the pocket; let alone food on the table. Her mother has an inkling of the magic involved with her fathers music (jazz, which was something only "uncivilized" people played and listened to) and tells her to play to call him back to her. 

She calls something all right. but it isn't her father. 

This is another book where they portray fairies "properly". Not the cutesy flower fairies that grant wishes and do nice things, but the darker more changeable creatures that do not carry the same morals as humans at all. They have their own rules, to them. EVERYTHING is rules... but rules can be changed by wording or meaning or slipperiness. There is no dark or light, only what gets them their way.

This book does leave you wanting more, and does a great job of mixing folklore and fantasy with the realities of the times. 

Sarah Zettel did rather well I think, as this was her first novel for teens. I actively await reading the rest of this series and hope that the library has it somewhere in the systems.

Find it here: http://www.sarahzettel.com/novel/dust-girl/

ISBN: 978-0-375-86938-9