The Jade Notebook

Gr 9 Up—After 17 years of annual relocations, Zeeta believes she has found her home in the small town of Mazunte, Mexico, where her mother has taken a job managing cabanas nestled between a verdant jungle and a picturesque beach. Adding to her happiness, her boyfriend, Wendell, has taken a job at the local Turtle Center. Zeeta connects with the locals through interviews and with the land through exploration, recording her observations in a jade notebook. When she begins the search for her father, who initiated her move to Mazunte, she quickly becomes entangled in a series of connected mysteries involving a local bruja, or witch, poachers, and the authorities. In eloquent, full-bodied prose, this companion to The Indigo Notebook (2009) and The Ruby Notebook (2010, both Delacorte) tackles familial and romantic relationships, corruption, and ecological issues with veracity and complexity. Secondary characters are well formed and intrinsic to the plot development. The lush descriptions, intermittent action sequences, and sprinkling of fantasy all come together to form an engaging reading experience that will delight teens looking for a more mature story.—Nicole Politi, The Ocean County Library, Toms River, NJ