On a Wing and a Tear
by Cynthia Leitich Smith
Middle School    Heartdrum/HarperCollins    240 pp.
9/24    9780062870001    $18.99
e-book ed.  9780062870025    $9.99

When Great-Grandfather Bat (an actual bat) calls upon (humans) Ray and Mel to help him travel to a rematch of the legendary Great Ball Game in the Southeast Lands of Turtle Island, the two Chicago middle schoolers beg Ray’s Grampa Halfmoon to take them all. The road trip is a welcome opportunity for Mel to visit her Muscogee ancestral lands for the first time; she has recently learned more about them through a school project about the Trail of Tears. The ensuing adventure is filled with friendly talking animals and run-ins with goofy wannabe YouTube stars as well as reflection on both kids’ Indigenous heritage and injustices against Native peoples and Native nations. Smith has crafted a narrative that explores intergenerational grief and other difficult subjects yet is still jampacked with joy and humor. A jovial narrator (“Hesci, cousins! Looky there at that furry little guy, hugging himself in the hollow of an old oak tree”) carries the story along briskly and weaves in Native storytelling elements. Smith (Muscogee Nation) explains these traditions and further contextualizes the history of the removal era in an appended author’s note.

From the ">January/February 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.