Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00531

We received a copy of The Way to Rio Luna for free to read and review. Opinions are our own.

I am a fan of fantasy books. I’ve read all of the Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter and the like. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that approaches magic quite like this one. Our main character, Danny Monteverde appears to have read these books as well and he believes that magic is real. It is his belief in magic that gets him through some very difficult times in his life.

Danny is a foster kid who has been kicking around from home to home. His older sister is placed in separate foster care but she goes missing. It is up to Danny to find her and he believes that she has found a way to Rio Luna. Rio Luna is the land of some fairy tales that he and his sister loved and Danny is out to prove that it is real. His personal mission is to find this Rio Luna and his sister.

I read it and enjoyed it. I gave it to Andy to read and found him crying. The beginning of the book is rather sad. You have this boy, Danny who loses everything including his big sister. He is shuffled from foster family to foster family and never quite finds the right place. He’s desperately searching again hope to find his sister. It’s a bit heavy for an eight-year old who is quite sensitive. I encouraged him to keep at it because Danny has hope and he, Andy the reader, should also have hope. He continued to read and enjoyed it.

The book is recommended for ages 8-12). More information abort the book can be found below. If you are interested in purchasing a copy of the book, please consider our Amazon.com affiliate link. below as well.
In THE WAY TO RIO LUNA, eleven-year-old Danny Monteverde believes in magic. Most of all, he believes that his older sister, Pili, is waiting for him somewhere in Rio Luna, the enchanted land in their favorite book of fairy tales; he knows that Pili isn’t another teen runaway. When the siblings were placed in separate foster homes, she promised that she’d come back for him, and they’d build a new life together in Rio Luna. Yet as the years pass, Danny’s faith begins to dim. But just when he thinks it might be time to put foolish fairy tales behind him, he finds a mysterious book in the library. It’s a collection of stories that contain hints about how to reach another world. A map to Rio Luna . . . and to Pili. This is an extraordinary debut that will make you remember how to believe in magic.

Zoraida Córdova is the award-winning author of the Brooklyn Brujas series, The Vicious Deep trilogy, and Star Wars: A Crash of Fate. She has contributed stories to the New York Times bestselling anthology Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View, and Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women and Witchcraft. Zoraida was born in Ecuador and raised in Queens, New York.