A century after 911, magic is the last thing on any one's mind. Something is happening - trees are dying - people are getting sick - Kelsa Phillips' father dies from cancer. Science has no answer.
Trickster Girl
Helari Bell
Houghton Mifflin Books for Children
January 2011
Kelsa meets the most beautiful boy she has ever seen, but he is very strange. He claims to be Raven, a shape shifter, the Native American trickster spirit, the mythological creature who can change from human to a raven to even a leprechaun. He goes on about magic and an impending ecological disaster and Kelsa must help him save the world. Is he crazy or telling the truth? Kelsa will help him at a great risk to her own life.
There is a tree plague that began when terrorist released a mutating bacterium into the South American rain forest and is now spreading to other forests in the world. The trees can't fight off the bacteria because the leys are so badly weakened and can't support the forest. Leys are underground rivers of natural and magical energy running through the surface of the world. Since humans are responsible for this disaster - it will take a human's magic to correct the problem. Kelsa knows she must help Raven - but how - she is only a 15 year old child. Raven tells her she must rob a museum and get a medical bag belonging to a Navajo shaman containing magic dust strong enough to heal the leys. This certainly will create a problem and make her Mother very angry. She must deliver the dust to all nexus points along the leys from Colorado to Alaska.
Kelsa's journey is a dangerous one. She is tricked by the Otter Woman - one of Raven's enemies. She is almost killed by a biker gang at the Canada/ Alaska border. She can't do this any more. She throws the medicine bag across the border to a boys standing on the other side and goes home with her mother. Raven will have to find another human to finish the job.
Recommended for those who love a story of magic, myths and an author's imagination.
