Valentina Salazar is not a monster hunter

Title:

Author:

Summary:

It takes a special person to end up in detention on the last day of school. It takes a REALLY special person to accidentally burn down the school yard while chasing a fire-breathing chipmunk. But nothing about Valentina Salazar has ever been “normal.” The Salazars are protectors, tasked with rescuing the magical creatures who sometimes wander into our world, from grumpy unicorns to chupacabras . . . to the occasional fire-breathing chipmunk. When Val’s father is killed during a rescue mission gone wrong, her mother decides it’s time to retire from their life on the road. She moves the family to a boring little town in upstate New York and enrolls Val and her siblings in real school for the first time. But Val is a protector at heart and she can’t give up her calling. So when a mythical egg surfaces in a viral video, Val convinces her reluctant siblings to help her find the egg before it hatches and wreaks havoc. But she has some competition: the dreaded monster hunters who’ll stop at nothing to destroy the creature . . . and the Salazar family. -- Amazon.

Audience:

Ages 8-12. Scholastic Press.

Grades 4-6. Scholastic Press.

Edition:

First edition.

Physical Description:

353 pages ; 22 cm

Genre:

Action and adventure fiction.

Fantasy fiction.

Subject Term:

Monsters -- Juvenile fiction.

Fathers and daughters -- Juvenile fiction.

Siblings -- Juvenile fiction.

Families -- Juvenile fiction.

Hispanic Americans -- Juvenile fiction.

Geographic Term:

New York (State) -- Juvenile fiction.

Publisher:

Scholastic Press,

Publication Date:

2022

ISBN:

9781338712711

Publication Information:

New York : Scholastic Press, 2022.

Call Number:

J CORDOVA

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Item Barcode	Collection	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
33607003621557	Juvenile Fiction	CORDOVA	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

"Monsters, mayhem, and a little family magic will have readers rooting for Valentina!" -- Kwame Mbalia, New York Times bestselling author

It takes a special person to end up in detention on the last day of school.

It takes a REALLY special person to accidentally burn down the school yard while chasing a fire-breathing chipmunk.

But nothing about Valentina Salazar has ever been "normal." The Salazars are protectors, tasked with rescuing the magical creatures who sometimes wander into our world, from grumpy unicorns to chupacabras... to the occasional fire-breathing chipmunk.

When Val's father is killed during a rescue mission gone wrong, her mother decides it's time to retire from their life on the road. She moves the family to a boring little town in upstate New York and enrolls Val and her siblings in real school for the first time.

But Val is a protector at heart and she can't give up her calling. So when a mythical egg surfaces in a viral video, Val convinces her reluctant siblings to help her find the egg before it hatches and wreaks havoc. But she has some competition: the dreaded monster hunters who'll stop at nothing to destroy the creature... and the Salazar family.

Author Notes

Zoraida Córdova is the award-winning author of the Brooklyn Brujas series, The Vicious Deep trilogy, and Star Wars: A Crash of Fate . She has contributed stories to the New York Times bestselling anthology Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View , and Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women and Witchcraft . Zoraida was born in Ecuador and raised in Queens, New York.

Reviews (1)

Publisher's Weekly Review

An Ecuadorian tween from a family of former monster protectors embarks on one final mission in Córdova's (The Way to Rio Luna) rewarding on-the-road fantasy. During "the worst summer of my whole eleven-and-a-half-year-old life," Valentina Salazar longs to return to the Before Times--an era before school bullies, nightly homework, busy older siblings, and most importantly, the death of her beloved father. Now settled in Missing Mountain, N.Y., after a lifetime of camping and homeschooling, Valentina searches with little luck for a case that will help her family get back to normal--and back into their 1965 Ford Falcon camper. When Valentina sees video footage of a boy showcasing an egg that belongs to a rare monster--the same rare monster that killed her father--she and her elder siblings undertake a road trip to retrieve it, encountering a double-headed scorpion and large winged cats, among other creatures. With a gutsy, lionhearted protagonist ("By the way, weirdos make the world a better place!"), an inventive cryptid menagerie, and a sensitive portrayal of grief's effect on individuals and familial dynamics as seen through young eyes, Córdova's narrative comes aglow as it unfolds, radiating warmth, humor, and a love of the fantasy genre on each and every page. Ages 8--12. Agent: Suzie Townsend, New Leaf Literary & Media. (June)