The Girl from Earth's End

A coming-of-age story blossoming with tender honesty and hope.

Readers will root for Hanna as she grows new peer relationships while nurturing an enduring love for her fathers.

Gr 3-7--Twelve-year-old Henna has lived her entire life on the tiny island of Earth's End in the Gardenia Isles. Once renowned for its abundance of orange groves, the islands are now mostly barren and sparsely populated. Her island was once the home of the monastery of St. Hortense, horticulturalists who devoted their work to collecting and cataloging the native plant life. Henna came to the island on the Orange Boat, an old vessel that makes the island circuit delivering mail and supplies, as an infant in a box. Old Manol, the ship's captain, delivered the infant to inhabitants of Earth's End, who came to be Henna's papas; fair-skinned, artistic Niall and strong, dark-skinned Joaquim. Growing up with just her papas on the island means she is quite adept at gardening, growing, and harvesting food. Joaquim fishes while Niall paints and makes their home comfortable. Henna's life is content until one of her papas falls critically ill. Henna consults an old island book of plants that could unlock the secret to curing him. But to prepare the cure, she must leave the island and her parents to attend St. Basil's Conservatory School, where a secret seed repository could hold the only means to save Papa Niall. A charming and sweet story that shows what lengths a child will go to to protect the ones she loves. Henna's journey to find a cure for her papa is poignant yet adventurous. The characters she meets along the way are diverse and entertaining, from her genderfluid friend P to the quirky staff at St. Basil's. Yet the heart of the story lies in Henna's devotion to her fathers and finding the strength to allow others to help her when she has only known how to fend for herself. Filled with gardening vocabulary and information, it may inspire readers to pick up a spade and grow something wonderful. Although the location is fictional, Dairman's afterword mentions that her inspiration came from the people of the Azores Islands, off the coast of Portugal. Henna is depicted with dark hair, and light brown skin. VERDICT Very appealing and rich with touching moments alongside innocent adventure. Readers will become friends with Henna and share in her growth while being thoroughly entertained.--Carol Connor

Copyright 2023 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Twelve-year-old Henna Quinn-Correira, described as having sun-bronzed skin, has lived at the Gardenia Isles' remotest island, Earth's End, since being delivered by boat as an infant. Though her two papas, dark-complexioned Joaquim and pale-skinned Niall, weren't expecting to receive a baby in response to an ad for art project supplies, she's been with them ever since--developing an affinity for plant life and studying the Great Soil Blight that wiped out the islands' citrus industry. When Papa Niall's seeming allergies turn out to be the recurrence of a serious lung cancer, and Henna learns of the nightwalker plant--a rare, healing epiphyte of the islands' now-blighted orange trees--the girl leaves home to attend St. Basil's, the Gardenias' foremost plant sciences academy. The school may prove the repository of the nightwalker's remaining uncultivated seeds, which, Henna hopes, might be planted symbiotically with the island's last remaining orange tree to save Papa Niall's life. While thoughtfully building out the islands' natural world and touching on themes of discrimination, sustainability, and corporate ethics, Dairman (Desert Girl, Monsoon Boy) raises the stakes as quiet exposition gives way to a page-turning final half. The cast is intersectionally diverse; an author's note concludes. Ages 8-12. Agent: Ammi-Joan Paquette, Erin Murphy Literary. (Mar.)

Copyright 2023 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

A tender-hearted middle grade novel. . . Especially powerful are the depictions of Henna's friends, P and Lora, and their experiences as gender-fluid and disabled children, respectively. They are shown as whole people not in need of fixing, while illustrating the ways that the structures of society can make their everyday lives uncomfortable or difficult. There are no true villains here, as even the antagonists are treated with similarly empathetic nuance.
—School Library Connection