Winner of the John Newbery Medal Winner of the Pura Belpre Award TIME’s Best Books of the Year Wall Street Journal’s Best of the Year Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Best of the Year Boston Globe’s Best of the Year BookPage’s Best of the Year Publishers Weekly’s Best of the Year School Library Journal’s Best of the Year Kirkus Reviews’ Best of the Year Bank Street’s Best of the Year Chicago Public Library’s Best of the Best New York Public Library Best of the Year A Junior Library Guild Selection Cybils Award Finalist

From Pura Belpre Award winner and Newbery Medalist, Donna Barba Higuera–a brilliant journey through the stars, to the very heart of what makes us human.

Gripping in its twists and turns, and moving in its themes - truly a beautiful cuento.–New York Times

Clever and compelling . wonderfully subversive.–The Wall Street Journal

This tale packs a wallop. Exquisite.–Kirkus Reviews (starred)

Gripping, euphonious, and full of storytelling magic.–Publishers Weekly (starred)

A strong, heroic character, fighting incredible odds to survive and protect others.–School Library Journal (starred)

Habia una vez …

There lived a girl named Petra Pena, who wanted nothing more than to be a storyteller, like her abuelita.

But Petra’s world is ending. Earth has been destroyed by a comet, and only a few hundred scientists and their children - among them Petra and her family - have been chosen to journey to a new planet. They are the ones who must carry on the human race.

Hundreds of years later, Petra wakes to this new planet - and the discovery that she is the only person who remembers Earth. A sinister Collective has taken over the ship during its journey, bent on erasing the sins of humanity’s past. They have systematically purged the memories of all aboard - or purged them altogether.

Petra alone now carries the stories of our past, and with them, any hope for our future. Can she make them live again?