When adopted Elena visits Guatemala to meet her birth mother, she is called to save the village that would have been her home—using special magic traits that only she can access.

Aura Elena Baker didn't even want to find the woman who gave her away. But she’ll do anything to make her dad happy, and he wants to try. Maybe they’ll find some answers, he says, like why her tears are purple and her tongue turns yellow when she’s angry, why when she’s happy enough, she lifts off the ground. 

Elena’s dad thinks maybe life would be safer and simpler without these “specials.” But her birth mother, Caterina, cherishes them. Elena is a lifter, she explains, from a long Mayan tradition; so is Elena's half-sister, Colel. Even more shocking, Elena’s adoption wasn't her mother's choice, not at all. 

Amidst the joy of reunion comes terrible news: Caterina’s village (Elena’s village, in another life…) is in the crosshairs of a palm oil development that would steal the land and poison the water. Elena’s dad wants to flee back to Texas, but Colel pushes her to join the fight. Caught in the middle, only Elena can answer the question: who will she become?    

Woven with magical realism, Sunchild is a captivating story of identity, family, and ecological justice from Guatemalan-Anglo American and Pura Belpré Honoree Rebecca Balcárcel, author of Shine On, Luz Véliz! and The Other Half of Happy.