Yamile Saied Méndez - On These Magic Shores

Yamile Mndez has woven a magical story about love and determination and the power we all have within. Her beautiful words and Minervas mighty character, even in the face of unimaginable loss and pain, grasped my heart from the first page. On These Magic Shores is equally gorgeous and powerful.

Kacen Callender, author of Hurricane Child

A powerful story about family love, resilience, and blazing new pathways. The magic Minerva finds is the kind that will linger long after you close the book.

Cindy Baldwin, author of Where the Watermelon Grows

A beautifully-written story about hard times, friendship, and the transcendent magic of family. Readers will love Minervas strength, ambition, and quirky humor, and will cheer for her as she bears huge responsibilities at home, faces challenges at school, and learns how to allow herself to be a kid.

Rajani LaRocca, author of Midsummer Mayhem

On These Magic Shores soars! A rarely seen Argentine American immigrant tale that will swoop in and claim every readers heart. When her mother goes missing, we fly into the tender tale of one girls resilience and determination to keep her family together with the help from a friend and the flutter of fairies. A beauty of a book!

Aida Salazar, author of International Latino Book Award winner The Moon Within

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2020 by Yamile Saied Mndez

Cover illustration 2020 by Sarah Coleman

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

TU BOOKS, an imprint of LEE & LOW BOOKS Inc.,

95 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

leeandlow.com

Book design and interior illustrations by Sheila Smallwood

Edited by Stacy Whitman

First Edition

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Mndez, Yamile Saied, author.

Title: On these magic shores / Yamile Saied Mndez.

Description: First edition. | New York : Tu Books, an imprint of Lee & Low

Books, [2020] | Audience: Ages 8-12. | Audience: Grades 4-6. | Summary:

A friend and some very real fairy magic help twelve-year-old Minnie who is caring for her younger sisters, hiding that their mother is missing, and preparing for her schools production of Peter Pan.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019044471 | ISBN 9781643790312 (hardcover) | ISBN

9781643790336 (mobi) | ISBN 9781643790329 (epub)

Subjects: CYAC: Missing persons Fiction. | Responsibility Fiction. |

Sisters Fiction. | Friendship Fiction. | Theater Fiction. |

Fairies Fiction. | Magic Fiction. | Argentine Americans Fiction.

Classification: LCC PZ7.1.M4713 On 2020 | DDC [Fic] dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019044471

Para mis hermanos, Damin, Mara Beln, y Gonzalo Saied, mis primeros amigos y compaeros de aventuras. Los quiero!

And to all older siblings who know what a blessing and burden the littles can be.

On these magic shores children at play

are for ever beaching their coracles.

We too have been there; we can still hear the sound of the surf,

though we shall land no more.

J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Peter Pan was an idiot. Only an idiot would wish to be a child forever. The play Peter Pan was for idiots. Practicing for it was for idiots. But if I was going to be Wendy, the only important girl character in the play, I had to practice, even if I sounded like the greatest idiot of all. Twelve years old, and here I was, embarrassing myself in front of my baby sisters.

They both sat quietly watching as I pretended my sister Kotas teddy bear was Peter Pan. But, the bears beady eyes. The simple smile. The binky with the yellowing silicone. It was too much for me.

Lets pretend Peters invisible, I said, tossing the bear aside. Or lets just talk to his shadow. Theres plenty of shadows in this horrible place.

Our moldy basement apartment smelled like a dungeon, and I was the prisoner.

Kotas outraged gasp almost stopped me. Almost. I threw a blanket over the bear to keep it out of sight.

Minerva Soledad Miranda, she said, her loose top-front tooth flapping in and out, in and out with every breath she took. Why are you so rude? Our home is not horrible. It was Mam speaking through my six-year-old sister. And dont be mean to Mister Browny! He cant breathe!

I grabbed my hair and silent-shouted, Dont call me Minerva! Its Minnie. Minnie. Understood? I hissed and my throat hurt like I had shouted for real. I was frustrated, but not dumb. If we made a lot of noise and the neighbor, Mr. Chang, complained, Mam would be furious.

I stood in front of Kota, relishing the feeling of being two heads taller than someone for once in my life.

She pretended to be unfazed, but her cheeks turned bright red like Mr. Changs unpicked apples in the backyard. At the first chance she had, Kota skipped away from me. Dont stare at my tooth, she said. It doesnt want to fall because the Tooth Fairys scared of you.

The Tooth Fairy? Fairies dont exist! I laughed. No. I mocked her, and to make her suffer even more, I added, Besides, we dont get a Tooth Fairy. Remember, for us its the Mouse. El Ratn Prez.

Mam insisted on us keeping the tradition from Argentina, where shed grown up. Id gone along because I hadnt known any better. Once Id started school though, and the other kids told me a fairy took their teeth and not a mouse, switching to the fairy had been a no-brainer for me. For Kota, who loved fairies with an irrational fervor, choosing a mouse over a fairy was inconceivable.

Kota pressed her hands over her ears, even if it went against Mams wishes. I cant hear you! I cant hear you!

That is, if you get anything! Youre being terrible, I yelled above her chant.

She heard me after all. Her eyes went all misty and shiny. She snatched the bear from underneath the blanket and hugged it so tight, it would have been strangled if it were a real thing.

Kota was terrified of mice, but her greatest fear was hurting a fairy. Even by accident. Because of Tinker Bell, and the tales about the Peques the Argentine fairies our mom told us, my sisters believed that when I said fairies werent real, one fell dead in Fairyland. Now, they looked away from me, as if I were worse than a dirty rodent. My cheeks burned. I didnt really want Kota and Avi to think I was a fairy killer.