Review by Booklist Review
This is a gripping tale of ancestry and finding your way home. Atlas returns to her grandmother's North Carolina home to celebrate her own nineteenth birthday, a day that she shares with three of her cousins and her grandmother. Atlas has always found a quiet peace at her Grannylou's home, as well as a connection to the Great Dismal Swamp that she can't explain. Her Grannylou feels the same connection to the swamp, speaking in riddles about reading maps, nineteenth birthdays, and finding paradise. When the swamp takes their grandmother, Atlas and her cousins work to uncover the secrets of the Great Dismal Swamp (and the people that history has forgotten) while tapping into their own strengths. In this story that is set in the eighteenth century and told through a dual POV, Babylou and her siblings flee to the Great Dismal Swamp for safety after their mother's brutal murder, not realising that their small paradise would inspire envy from those on the outside. Pink's use of alternating perspectives and time lines makes this all the more powerful. Under the Heron's Light is a beautiful story steeped in history and ghosts; it inspires further research and serves as a reminder to honor ancestors' sacrifices.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Alternating between Black 19-year-old Atlas's first-person POV in the present and her ancestor's third-person perspective in the 1770s, Pink (We Are the Scribes) offers an expansive intergenerational portrait that uses a fantastical lens to highlight the importance of family and knowing one's history. While enslaved on a Virginia plantation in 1722, Babylou and her siblings are devastated by their mother's violent murder. After Babylou uses supernatural powers to kill the white boy responsible, the siblings escape to the Great Dismal Swamp, a living entity that allows them to create a new home for themselves. In preparation for a present-day celebration, Atlas returns to her home near the Great Dismal Swamp in North Carolina to celebrate her grandmother Grannylou's birthday. When Grannylou disappears into the swamp, and Atlas discovers that she has the ability to guide others through the marsh, she and her cousins band together to unravel the family secrets embedded in the bog. Mesmerizing storytelling brings together myriad backdrops, characters, storylines, and themes. Pulling inspiration from real events and places, Pink imbues this beguiling dark fantasy with striking texture, adding human elements to the eerie setting via fiercely wrought familial relationships. Ages 13--up. Agent: Marietta B. Zacker, Gallt & Zacker Literary. (Oct.)
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Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 8 Up--Three hundred years ago, Babylou Mac and her siblings escaped into North Carolina's Great Dismal Swamp after Babylou killed their mother's murderer. There, they lived on the Isle of Floriate, an enchanted place where the natural world protects those whom she deems worthy, but not without a price. In the present day, Atlas and her three cousins Mika, Jacob, and Pansy prepare to celebrate Bornday--the combined birthday tradition for the cousins and their beloved family matriarch, Grannylou. This Bornday celebration promises change early on, when Grannylou allows Atlas a first sip of Dismal Tea, a powerful potion that gives Atlas the ability to perceive ghostly spirits. Always content to believe she was Grannylou's favorite, Atlas is startled when Pansy is revealed to have had her own unsettling experience with the Swamp, which seems to be beckoning Grannylou back into its "thumb-thick thicket[s]" for reasons the cousins struggle to understand. But they would follow Grannylou to the ends of the Earth, though the swamp is filled with magic and intense emotions, and something there demands a reckoning. The Great Dismal Swamp is a very real place with a harrowing history worth exploring. The lyrical and ethereal writing alongside the warmth of the dialect, a creative concept extremely well executed, and characters readers can't help but care about combine with painfully authentic emotions for a one-sitting read. VERDICT This must-purchase is an expansive narrative that skillfully examines the ways a family's past affects descendants in the present.--Allie Stevens
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
The Great Dismal Swamp is ready to unearth family secrets. In 1722, Babylou Mac, nearly 19, killed the preacher's son right after he murdered her mother. With the owner of the plantation where the family was enslaved in pursuit, she and her siblings fled into the magic of the Great Dismal Swamp, a wild and dangerous place that offered death and salvation in turn. In modern times, Atlas returns to her grandmother Grannylou's home for the Bornday celebration: She and three cousins, all born on Grannylou's birthday, are turning 19. Atlas worries that Grannylou's age is catching up to her; she speaks of impossible, magical things, including having lived for hundreds of years. Grannylou, in turn, sees in Atlas a beacon for the lost souls, "guided by the promises of our ancestors" and seeking a paradise hidden in the swamp--but she also warns against letting the wrong people in. When Grannylou decides to return to the swamp, the cousins must unravel the secrets of the Isle of Floriate, which "has been a refuge of necessity" that blesses those "brave enough to reach its shores." They must also guard against old enemies with grudges against their family. Poetic language, lush descriptions, and characters so conflicted and nuanced as to feel real anchor the magical elements, while the cousins untangle centuries of heartbreaks and horrors inflicted by cruel white enslavers to learn where they came from and the gifts they've inherited. A fierce, loving, and exquisite humanity-centered book. (author's note, sources)(Fantasy. 13-adult) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
