The Girl Who Saved Yesterday by Julius Lester

THE GIRL WHO SAVED YESTERDAY
Written by Julius Lester
Illustrated by Carl Angel
(Creston Books; $16.99, Ages 4-9 )

From the Newbery Honor award-winner and master storyteller Julius Lester comes his long-awaited picture book, The Girl Who Saved Yesterday. In this poetic myth, “when the people of the village sent the girl into the forest, it was the trees as ancient as breath who took her in and raised her.” The young girl, named Silence by the trees, is soon tasked with returning to her village to save all of the Yesterdays. Beyond this unusual instruction, the trees can give her no further detail.

The villagers feared that Silence would anger the mountain “which loomed like a memory no one could recall.” When Silence returned, the villagers watched her brave a mysterious night alone, where shafts of light from the mountain filled the sky and passed through her; the voices carried by the light were “all shrieking like bolts of lightning sharpened by hopelessness, and the very land shook as if it were sobbing.” The girl realizes she must return to the forgotten place and find her parents.

In this beautifully written book, Silence recognizes the sounds of an unloved heart. Determination takes her to the mountain’s top; there she discovers the source of sadness and understands how to end the illness which had befallen this land.

Lester’s poetic lines are complemented by Angel’s bright, expressive images that help young readers understand the heart of this story: you cannot have Today without Yesterday. Once the ancestors’ memories are found, the spirits “encircled the people of the village, holding them in an embrace as gentle as eternity.”

• Reviewed by Christine Van Zandt

Writer, editor, and owner of Write for Success www.Write-for-Success.com

@WFSediting, Christine@Write-for-Success.com

Co-editor of and writer for SCBWI’s Kite Tales https://SCBWIKiteTales.wordpress.com/