THE YOUNGEST SISTER

A young Quechua girl living in a mountain village in Argentina longs to win the coveted flavor bone used to season her family’s soup.

Picu is the youngest of five sisters, seven cousins, and two more children under her mother’s care. In their thatched-roof hut, preparations for the lunch soup have begun, and Mum assigns each child a job. Picu has the least important task—fetching the flavor bone from a neighbor who lives two hours away, perhaps a little more, perhaps a little less, who knows, for there are no clocks to measure time. As she walks to Doña Ciriaca’s house, Picu gets distracted, as children do: She picks fruit, throws dirt at cacti, and turns her bag into a slingshot. Arriving at Doña Ciriaca’s, she receives a bone that has already been used by several other families. Picu’s family will be the last one to use the bone, and then one child will get to keep it as a toy. Picu needs to get back home before noon; otherwise, she might ruin her chances of winning the flavor bone…alas, she’s running late! Moreno’s narrative paints Picu’s world without spectacle—it will be up to readers to grasp the harshness and poverty of her environment. Like Picu’s life, the accompanying illustrations are rough and many-textured; the strong, sometimes jarring colors are both arresting and slightly unsettling. This English translation retains the idiosyncratic voice of the original Spanish (La Hermana menor). (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A memorable story alive with the voice of an Indigenous people seldom heard from.