2021 Pura Belpré Honor Book
NYPL Best Book of 2020
2020 Evanston Public Library Great Books for Kids
**
In this magical middle-grade debut novel from Adrianna Cuevas, The
Total Eclipse of Nestor Lopez, a Cuban American boy must use his secret
ability to communicate with animals to save the inhabitants of his town
when they are threatened by a tule vieja, a witch that transforms into
animals.**
All Nestor Lopez wants is to live in one place for more than a few
months and have dinner with his dad.
When he and his mother move to a new town to live with his grandmother
after his dad's latest deployment, Nestor plans to lay low. He
definitely doesn't want to anyone find out his deepest secret: that he
can talk to animals.
But when the animals in his new town start disappearing, Nestor's
grandmother becomes the prime suspect after she is spotted in the woods
where they were last seen. As Nestor investigates the source of the
disappearances, he learns that they are being seized by a tule vieja--a
witch who can absorb an animal's powers by biting it during a solar
eclipse. And the next eclipse is just around the corner...
Now it's up to Nestor's extraordinary ability and his new friends to
catch the tule vieja--and save a place he might just call home.