The Girl Who Could Silence the Wind [Hardcover]

Sonia’s entire village believes she has a gift, but it’s only in leaving home that she finds out who she truly is. A compelling tale from a rich voice in young adult fiction.

Sixteen-year-old Sonia Ocampo was born on the night of the worst storm Tres Montes had ever seen. And when the winds mercifully stopped, an unshakable belief in the girl’s protective powers began. All her life, Sonia has been asked to pray for sick mothers or missing sons, as worried parents and friends press silver milagros in her hands. Sonia knows she has no special powers, but how can she disappoint those who look to her for solace? Still, her conscience is heavy, so when she gets a chance to travel to the city and work in the home of a wealthy woman, she seizes it. At first, Sonia feels freedom in being treated like all the other girls. But when news arrives that her beloved brother has disappeared while looking for work, she learns to her sorrow that she can never truly leave the past or her family behind. With deeply realized characters, a keen sense of place, a hint of magical realism, and a flush of young romance, Meg Medina tells the tale of a strongwilled, warmhearted girl who dares to face life’s harsh truths as she finds her real power.Medina creates a compelling narrative within a Latin American culture where parents cling to old ways and their children thread their paths between hope and despair, trying to find a viable future. Though touches of magical realism appear in the novel, the real magic here arises from the story of a girl struggling to see beyond others’ perceptions and find her own way in a society that seems to offer few options.
—Booklist Online

This multilayered debut novel is particularly successful in presenting the complexities of Sonia’s thoughts as she tries to understand her identity and her social role. As the town mystic, she never allowed herself to consider the possibility of a future of helS6