Strange things are happening in Brooklyn even before a re-animated corpse attacks Sierra Santiago at the inaugural party of the summer. The murals on local buildings are changing and fading, tears and anguished expressions moving across the faces of the people in the paintings. Sudden, urgent requests from her invalid grandfather to team up with a boy named Robbie lead Sierra to discover a world of ancient magic tied directly to their Caribbean heritage: shadowshaping. An artist initiated into the shadowshapers can create a work of art—drawing, story, song, mural—and channel spirits to inhabit the creation and do the creator’s will. Robbie inducts Sierra, who shows a natural talent, into the shadowshapers. With the aid of Nydia (an archivist from Columbia University), Manny the Domino King, Neville Spencer (Sierra’s resourceful godfather), and her friends, Sierra and Robbie use their talents to unravel the mystery of the disappearing murals, fight a power-hungry anthropologist, and restore strength to the shadowshapers. The realistic characters and grounding of this urban fantasy in Puerto Rican and Haitian culture stand out. There is dialogue peppered with Spanish and French, comfort food of plantains and chicken and rice, Robbie’s tattoos portraying his Taino heritage, and the Salsa-Thrash Metal band led by Sierra’s brother. Open discussions of race and racial politics among the characters are also notable in a book that affirms the power of owning and embracing one’s cultural heritage. (Ages 13 and older)

"Magnificent." -- Holly Black, New York Times Book Review

Come to the crossroads, to the crossroads comeSierra Santiago planned an easy summer of making art and hanging with her friends. But then a corpse crashes the first party of the season. Her stroke-ridden grandfather starts apologizing over and over. And when the murals in her neighborhood begin to weep real tears . . . Well, something more sinister than the usual Brooklyn ruckus is going on.Where the powers converge and become oneWith the help of a fellow artist named Robbie, Sierra discovers shadowshaping, a thrilling magic that infuses ancestral spirits into paintings, music, and stories. But someone is killing the shadowshapers one by one -- and the killer believes Sierra is hiding their greatest secret. Now she must unravel her family's past, take down the killer in the present, and save the future of shadowshaping for herself and generations to come.Full of a joyful, defiant spirit and writing as luscious as a Brooklyn summer night, Shadowshaper introduces a fantasy heroine and magic unlike any you've ever seen before, and marks the YA debut of a brilliant new storyteller.