Había una vez . . .(Once upon a time…)
A book for older children (and perhaps young adults) with Hispanic influences. Using a mixture of modern science fiction and traditional folklore, The Last Storyteller explores the theme of story telling as heritage and the tradition of passing stories down through families in order to sustain culture.
Petra must take the stories handed down from Lita and use them to rebuild collective memories of earth, remembering the good with the bad, so that there is always chance to learn from mistakes.
The story is quite emotional in parts and looks at difficult issues like isolation and the burden of carrying the weight of your entire culture, which younger readers may find difficult but teen readers may well relate to.
I would recommend this for people who enjoyed the Chaos Walking trilogy, or the Nahx Invastion stories.