A Snake Falls to Earth (Darcie Little Badger)

A Snake Falls to Earth
Darcie Little Badger
Levine Querido
Fiction, YA Fantasy
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: When Nina was a young girl, her great-great-grandmother Rosita told her many stories of the old Lipan ways, from the times before the white people came and even before the two worlds - our own Earth and the Reflecting World of the spirits and shapeshifting animal people and old magic - were separated, but one has haunted her more than any other: the last tale she told, while lying in a hospital bed, speaking the lost language of their tribe. Nina is sure there's a hidden truth in that story, one tied to the Texas land where Grandma now lives (and which the old woman seems strangely reluctant to leave, even as drought and increasingly poor weather threaten the place). The land never seemed special beyond her family, though, until a new nosy neighbor turns up. By unraveling the story's secrets, maybe Nina can save the land, and her grandmother.
In the Reflecting World, the cottonmouth boy Oli has just been turned out from his mother's home, as all young cottonmouths are, to find his own way in the world - but he's having a very rough time of it. He even lost the last gift his mother gave him, a blanket woven with his family's special design. After stumbling upon the elusive path to anywhere-you-please (a path that may only appear once in a long lifetime), he finally manages to find a place to make his home, and even some new friends: a hawk, a pair of boisterous coyotes, and a small blue-throated toad who never speaks or takes a false human form, but is nevertheless a steadfast companion. When the toad falls ill, Oli determines to find the cause and hopefully a cure, even if it means traveling to the world of humans.
Nina and Oli live in literally separate worlds, but their paths are destined to cross. When they do, many questions may be answered... or everything could go terribly wrong...

REVIEW: I really enjoyed Elatsoe by the same author, so I figured I'd try this one. Like Elatsoe, A Snake Falls to Earth takes place in a modern Earth one step to the side of our own, an Earth where the reality of the Reflecting World and its former connection to our own is an accepted reality. People know of the existence of the animal people, but it's generally believed they haven't visited our world for many generations. The tale is also steeped in Native American lore and storytelling traditions. Nina aspires to be a storyteller like her favorite online celebrities, but thus far has never had the courage to share tales with the world, instead recording them in a private video diary. The puzzle of her great-great-grandmother's last story (and other oddities, such as her family's odd longevity and the strangely powerful pull of the ancestral land) drives her to dig deeper into Lipan lore and culture, which has sadly faded through the generations. Meanwhile, Oli makes his perilous way from childhood to adulthood in the Reflecting World, a place of both wonders and dangers, powerful originator spirits and dark monsters... but also with traces of modern Earth, in a market of smuggled real world goods (which do not last long in the reflected world, but which inspire various innovations such as the specatcles nearsighted Oli wears in his false human form, and contraptions like automobiles and steam-powered houseboats that a few animal people tinker with). He might have lived his life complacently beside his favorite basking rock and the bottomless lake, with no friends but the silent toad, but finds himself pulled into the antics of the coyotes, not to mention having to deal with fallout from his early fumbling efforts to find his own way (during which he made an enemy who has not forgotten him). The arcs of Nina and Oli are largely independent through a fair chunk of the book, only later crossing ways when Oli and his friends make the perilous crossing to our world. They manage to help each other, but their stories remain their own; neither is helpless without the other. There's humor and emotion and distinctive characters in both of their worlds, and nobody is particularly stupid for the sake of being stupid/drawing out the tale (though they sometimes need a bit of a push to get moving). Something about it felt a little incomplete by the end, though the book itself mentions how tales rarely have a simple, clean arc and ending, trailing off into other tales, much as life itself is more than a simple thread with a clearly defined point. Overall, I enjoyed the characters and the distinct Native American flavor, even if I didn't find myself enjoying it quite as much as Elatsoe.

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