Secret of the Moon Conch

Ages 13 And Up

Even 500 years couldn’t keep them apart. . . Award-winning authors collaborate on a sweeping fantasy romance about falling in love despite all odds.

In modern day Mexico, Sitlali has no family left and has caught the attention of a dangerous gang leader. She has no choice but to make the perilous trip to the US border and track down her long-absent father. The night before her journey, she finds a beautiful conch shell detailed with ancient markings.

In 1521, Calizto is a young Aztec warrior in Tenochtitlan, fighting desperately to save his city from Spanish imperialists. With his family dead and the horrors of war surrounding him, Calizto asks a sacred moon conch for guidance.

Connected by the magical conch, Sitlali and Calizto can communicate across centuries, finding comfort in each other as they fight to survive. With each conversation, they fall deeper in love, but will they be able to find a way to each other?

About the Author

David Bowles is an award-winning Mexican American author and translator from Texas. His books include The Smoking Mirror, Feathered Serpent Dark Heart of Sky, and They Call Me Güero. He has been published in the New York Times, School Library Journal, Strange Horizons, English Journal, Rattle, Translation Review, and the Journal of Children's Literature. In 2017, he was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters, and in 2020, he co-founded #DignidadLiteraria, a social justice movement advocating for greater Latinx representation in publishing.

Guadalupe García McCall is the award-winning author of Under the Mesquite, Summer of the Mariposas, Shame the Stars, All the Stars Denied, and Echoes of Grace. She has received a Pura Belpré Author Award, a Westchester Young Adult Fiction Award, and the Tomás Rivera Mexican-American Children’s Book Award, and was a finalist for the William C. Morris Award and the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy. She advocates for literacy and diverse books. She lives with her husband in Texas.