Momo Arashima Steals the Sword of the Wind (Momo Arashima #1)
by Misa Sugiura (Author)
A thrilling fantasy series about a twelve year old girl who sets out to save her Shinto goddess mother--and the world--by facing down demons intent on bringing chaos.
All Momo wants for her twelfth birthday is an ordinary life--like everyone else's. At home, she has to take care of her absentminded widowed mother. At school, kids ridicule her for mixing up reality with the magical stories her mother used to tell her. But then Momo's mother falls gravely ill, and a death hag straight out of those childhood stories attacks Momo at the mall, where she's rescued by a talking fox . . . and "ordinary" goes out the window. It turns out that Momo's mother is a banished Shinto goddess who used to protect a long-forgotten passageway to Yomi--a.k.a. the land of the dead.
That passageway is now under attack, and countless evil spirits threaten to escape and wreak havoc across the earth. Joined by Niko the fox and Danny--her former best friend turned popular jerk, whom she never planned to speak to again, much less save the world with--Momo must embrace her (definitely not "ordinary") identity as half human, half goddess to unlock her divine powers, save her mother's life, and force the demons back to Yomi.
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Publishers Weekly
A Japanese American 12-year-old must procure a magical artifact to save the world from monsters in this rollicking series opener by Sugiura (Love & Other Natural Disasters). Momo Arashima's widowed mother raised her on stories about Japanese gods, called kami, and monsters, called yo¯kai. Momo also "tended to see things no one else could see," often confusing her supernatural visions with reality, and leading to her getting bullied by classmates and feeling like an outsider at Oak Valley Middle School. Her life becomes even more challenging, though, when she's attacked by a Japanese death hag and saved by a magical fox named Niko as well as bully Danny Haragan, a former Japanese friend adopted by white parents. Momo soon learns that her mother is a Shinto goddess, guardian of the Island of Mysteries, and that demons have escaped from the underworld into the mortal plane. To protect humankind, Momo, Danny, and Niko must travel across heaven and earth for an enchanted sword to defeat the yo¯kai. Culturally specific details imbue this roller-coaster-feeling magical plot with authenticity and intrigue, while Momo's smart, funny narration and slowly reforming relationship with Danny ground their adventure in a thoughtful friendship tale. Ages 8-12. (Feb.)
Copyright 2023 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.Review quotes
—Sayantani DasGupta, New York Times bestselling author of the Kingdom Beyond series "With vivid descriptions, relatable characters, and colorful figures from Japanese mythology, Misa Sugiura takes readers on a grand adventure."
—Brandon Mull, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Fablehaven
JUV001000 - Juvenile Fiction | Action & Adventure
JUV013000 - Juvenile Fiction | Family | General
JUV012060 - Juvenile Fiction | Legends, Myths, Fables | Asian
Adventure and adventurers
Magic
Adventure stories
Japanese Americans
Fantasy
Fantasy fiction
Mothers and daughters
Foxes
Spirits
Ability
Action and adventure fiction
Gods, Shinto
