When Dmitri, an eleven-year-old bird-watcher and math whiz, loses his
mother to breast cancer, he is taken in by Mrs. Martin, an elderly white
woman. Unaccustomed to the company of kids his own age, D struggles at
school and feels like an outcast until a series of unexpected events
changes the course of his life.
First, D is asked to tutor the school's basketball star, Hakeem, who
will get benched unless his grades improve. Against the odds, the two
boys soon realize they have something in common: they are both taunted
by kids at school, and they both have a crush on Nyla, a beautiful but
fierce eighth-grade girl. Then Nyla adopts D and invites him to join her
entourage of "freaks." Finally, D discovers an injured bird and brings
it home from the park.
D is stunned when the strange bird speaks to him and reveals that she is
really a guiding spirit that has been held hostage by ghost soldiers who
died in Brooklyn at the start of the American Revolution. As Nuru's
chosen host, D must carry her from Brooklyn to the African Burial Ground
in lower Manhattan, but the ghost soldiers won't surrender their prize
without a fight.
With the help of Hakeem and Nyla, D battles the Nether Beings who lurk
underground, feeding off centuries of rage and pain. But it takes an
unexpected ally to help the trio reach the ship that will deliver the
innocent souls of the dead back to Nuru's realm. An urban fantasy
infused with contemporary issues and historical facts, Ship of Souls
by Zetta Elliott will keep teen readers gripped until the very end.
