Blanca & Roja by Anne-Marie McLemore

Inspired by transformation in the tales of Snow-White and Rose-Red and Swan Lake, McLemore has created a beautiful story of magical realism in lyrical prose.  The title characters are two sisters who come from a long line of women in a Latinx family that has been cursed for generations. The curse is that there are always two daughters and one is chosen by the swans to become one of them. Roja has always know it would be her, for she is seen as the one with darker skin and fiery red-black hair and wicked, passionate ways.  Blanca of the fair skin and hair is the sweet, obedient, graceful one.
They are the yin and yang and closer than a circle.  Together they vow to break the curse.  While they hope to stop the transformation to swan, two missing boys have become a bear and a cygnet. A rich boy from an abusive family has become Yearling the bear. The cygnet is Page, a trans boy from a family who grow apples as if it is an art. Love happens to all but not as expected and with dire consequences.  Can destiny be avoided, can expectations and assumptions be shattered?
“The story of the ugly duckling was never about the cygnet discovering he is lovely. It is not a story about realizing you have become beautiful. It is about the sudden understanding that you are something other than what you thought you were, and that what you are is more beautiful that what you once though you had to be.”
One of the most beautiful books I have read, magic, fierce, bright and unforgettable. 
 
 Tessa's Picks
7th-8th grade, Character driven, Fairy Tales, Fantasy, LGBTQ, Romance, People of Color 

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