Sang Spell

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's 'Sang Spell' is a poignant young adult novel exploring themes of grief, identity, and self-discovery through a blend of realistic fiction and magical realism. Josh, a teenager reeling from his mother's accidental death, embarks on a cross-country hitchhiking trip to escape his past. He inadvertently finds himself in a secluded, mysterious community known as the Sang, a place inhabited by the Melungeons, a real historical group often overlooked. This village, seemingly a refuge, becomes a crucible where Josh must confront his inner darkness and make profound choices about his future. The book is suitable for ages 12-18 and offers a deep dive into processing loss and finding one's place.

Josh is hitchhiking from Boston to Dallas to begin a new life, trying to sort out the changes that have skewed his world since an accident killed his mother and made a mockery of his dreams. No longer will he be what he was -- an important person in a high school he loved. Instead he will be starting his junior year in a place where no one will know him, no one will care. He wanders up a road he has taken away from the interstate, where he has been thumbing rides, looking for a village where he might find shelter from the unexpected August cold and rain. When a car comes along, it looks like a ride to somewhere. And that's what it proves to be. But the somewhere he finds is not the somewhere he expected. It is a place that knows him, knows the darkness inside of him; that offers food and shelter, but also confronts him with choices he does not know how to make. It probes his past, examines his possible futures, and finally pierces the wall of despair he has built around himself. Sang Spell is a fantasy built on the hopes and dreams of a people who longed for a place of peace, for a way out of the dark and the rain. Some might think finding such a place to be a miracle, but not Josh. To him it is a nightmare, a prison he cannot escape. Sang Spell is an adventure into a place of forgotten people, the Melungeons, and into the boundaries created by the human mind.