National Network for Equitable Library Service

Everything in 12-year-old Pilar Violeta “Purp” Ramirez’s world is changing, and Pilar doesn’t care for it one bit. Her Chicago neighborhood is gentrifying, and her chores have doubled since her sister, Lorena, left for college. The only constant is Abuela and Mami’s code of silence around her cousin, Natasha - who disappeared in the Dominican Republic 50 years ago during the Trujillo dictatorship. So when Pilar hears that one of Lorena's professor's studies disappearances under the Trujillato, she hops on the next train. After snooping around the professor's empty office, she finds a folder with her cousin’s name on it...and Pilar literally falls into the blank page within. She lands on Zafa, an island swarming with coconut-shaped demons, butterfly shape-shifters, and a sinister magical prison where her cousin is being held captive. Pilar will have to go toe-to-toe with the fearsome Dominican boogeyman if she has any hope of freeing Natasha and getting back home.