Felice and the Wailing Woman

February 20, 2023
The surviving child of a grieving ghost sets off to uncover familial mysteries in this folkloric series starter from López (Sing with Me). Twelve-year-old Felice has always lived under the shadow of her mother and brothers’ death by drowning. She was saved from the same fate by her uncle Clem, who has raised her in Corpus Christi, away from the river in Tres Leches, Tex., that “took my family and... almost took me.” With the arrival of Uncle Clem’s old friend Reynaldo, Tres Leches’s mayor, Felice learns that her mother still haunts the river where she and her sons died, seeking her remaining child, Felice. Reynaldo campaigned on the promise of a revitalized river, and he’s easily persuaded to take the girl back to Tres Leches, where she—alongside the children of other creatures from folklore—seeks to meet, and free, her mother’s ghost. Between Felice’s trauma-induced aquaphobia, the frightening reputation Felice’s mother has as La Llorona, and the river running suddenly dry, reuniting mother and daughter proves difficult. Both a loving, magically tinged portrayal of border-town Texas and a literalization of folklore, López’s moving portrayal of familial love and grief interweaves a tale of acceptance with a genuinely chilling ghost story. Characters read as of Mexican heritage. An author’s note concludes. Ages 8–12. Agent: Stefanie Sanchez Von Borstel, Full Circle Literary.