{"id":43097,"date":"2025-06-21T18:27:12","date_gmt":"2025-06-21T22:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=43097"},"modified":"2025-06-21T18:27:12","modified_gmt":"2025-06-21T22:27:12","slug":"review-of-the-moonlit-vine-by-elizabeth-santiago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=43097","title":{"rendered":"Review of The Moonlit Vine, by Elizabeth Santiago"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Moonlit Vine<\/em><\/p>\n

by Elizabeth Santiago<\/p>\n

Tu Books (Lee & Low), 2023. 360 pages.
\nReview written November 6, 2023, from a book sent by the publisher
\nStarred Review<\/p>\n

The Moonlit Vine<\/em> is a contemporary story of Ta\u00edna, a 14-year-old descendant of Ta\u00edno women from Puerto Rico, combined with the story of those ancestors and a touch of magical realism with an amulet and zemi they handed down to her.<\/p>\n

In the present, Ta\u00edna\u2019s older brother was recently in trouble for fighting and has been sent to live with their father, who has been living apart from them since he was sent to jail a few years ago. Her mother is working hard, leaving it to Ta\u00edna to care for her younger brother, 7-year-old Luis, and watch over their abuela with Alzheimer\u2019s.<\/p>\n

And then Ta\u00edna gets in trouble herself at school when she speaks up for herself a little too forcefully. On top of that, there\u2019s gang activity in her neighborhood and she can\u2019t get a straight answer from her brother what happened between him and the friend she has a crush on.<\/p>\n

Ta\u00edna\u2019s modern-day problems are interwoven with stories of the women who went before her, starting with a great cacique of the Ta\u00edno people, Anacaona, who welcomed Columbus and worked to protect her people. Anacaona was the one who created the contents of the box that has been handed down all the way to Ta\u00edna\u2019s abuela.<\/p>\n

The story is beautifully done, pulling in themes of community and family and standing together for change. The light touch of magical realism gives us an image of her foremothers standing with Ta\u00edna. There\u2019s an impressive amount of back matter about the Ta\u00edno people, who are definitely not extinct. This author did her research!<\/p>\n

leeandlow.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Find this review on Sonderbooks<\/a> at: www.sonderbooks.com\/Teens\/moonlit_vine.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.<\/p>\n

What did you think of this book?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Moonlit Vine by Elizabeth Santiago Tu Books (Lee & Low), 2023. 360 pages. Review written November 6, 2023, from a book sent by the publisher Starred Review The Moonlit Vine is a contemporary story of Ta\u00edna, a 14-year-old descendant of Ta\u00edno women from Puerto Rico, combined with the story of those ancestors and a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[99,42,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paranormal","category-starred-review","category-teen-fiction-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43097"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45351,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43097\/revisions\/45351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}