Summer of the Mariposas

By: Guadalupe Garcia McCall

Narrated by: Kyla Garcia

Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

Summer of the Mariposas is a magical Mexican American retelling of The Odyssey - and a celebration of sisterhood and maternal love.

When Odilia and her four sisters find a dead body in the swimming hole, they embark on a hero's journey to return the dead man to his family in Mexico. But returning home to Texas turns into an odyssey that would rival Homer's original tale.

With the supernatural aid of ghostly La Llorona via a magical earring, Odilia and her little sisters travel a road of tribulation to their long-lost grandmother's house. Along the way, they must outsmart a witch and her Evil Trinity: a wily warlock, a coven of vicious half-human barn owls, and a bloodthirsty livestock-hunting chupacabras.

Can these fantastic trials prepare Odilia and her sisters for what happens when they face their final test: returning home to the real world, where goddesses and ghosts can no longer help them?

©2015 Guadalupe Garcia McCall (P)2020 Listening Library

From a 13year old pov

It was a good story. It kept me hooked in between the chapters. I didn’t get the titles meanings but the story plot was pretty interesting. It was good, but not the best story I ever read you know?

Great book

I loved this book and I would recommend it to everyone but it was predictable.

Great story

My niece had to read this for her Spanish class so I decided to check it out! It was a great story full of love hope and adventure

Beautiful Story

This is a beautiful story of sisterhood and coming of age. I loved it! I will never forget the journey of the Garza Girls.
The performance, however, is not great. The voice sounded almost robotic. It felt cold and inauthentic.

Amazing Read!

As a teacher, I loved the rich vocabulary, metaphors, and the complexity of this text. This book could be used to teach so many language comprehension strands in your classroom. The story line is rigorous, exciting and filled with so much adventure that you can’t wait to hear what comes next! Even though the main characters are five sisters, boys will definitely get hooked on this book! I would imagine even reluctant readers finding this to be a book they would enjoy. I highly recommend this read!

The only thing to caution, depending on you child or students, is that they mention that Santa Clause is not real. With the age level you would use this book for, this most likely won’t be a problem. However, If you have a younger child with a high reading ability that picks this up, just know that this in there.

zero consequences

This story would have been better if it finished after they returned the body to his family. instead, the whole tone of the book changes and the Garza Girls go on a magical adventure. Every problem is solved by wishing on a magic earring. The ten-year-old whines like a toddler. The girls make bad decision after bad decision, then wish themselves out of the consequences. I had high hopes for this book.

weird but interesting ... but becomes tedious.

This is an adult reviewing a YA book, so this review is skewed. interesting concept. Chapter one was so very strange, but definitely intriguing. Gave up halfway through the book when it turned into neverending chapter after chapter of fighting off various mythical creatures, but without sufficiently interesting main characters to make it worth the fight. I started skipping chapters, and I am not that curious to know how this ends. In that way, it is very much like reading the Odyssey.
The writing is very clear and everything is explained concisely.
The narrator is very talented. The voice she chose for the main character who tells it in first person is annoying, but the main character is a teenage girl.
I think I would have gotten bogged down at about the same place if I were a teen. Just like I did reading the Odyssey.