Paradise Sands: A Story of Enchantment

Four white-presenting youths on the road follow a poem to their peril in this dark desert fantasy from Pinfold (Greenling). On a car trip with her three brothers, the narrator suggests they pull over and pick flowers for their mother, whom they're headed to visit in a hospital. When one brother sings the first line of a nonsense rhyme ("White roses we follow, toward Teller's hollow"), and another follows, the fragments hint at mischief to come: the girl follows her siblings into a vast, forbidding edifice, where they drink from a spring, eat from a marvelous feast, dive into a pool--and turn into dolphins. The girl wants the family to be on their way, but the smooth-tongued lion who oversees the place has other ideas ("You belong here"). He promises to restore the brothers to human form if the girl does not eat or drink for three days--then taunts her with a sumptuous banquet. The girl keeps her promise, but a small misstep invokes a curse that eerily suggests a connection to the past. Chilly, precision-drafted spreads with dazzling architectural motifs confer gravitas on this haunting fairy tale centering a steely character who remains resolute in the face of trickery. Ages 5-9. (Nov.)