If you’ve been paying attention, it should come as no surprise that the Rick Riordan Presents line of books has been absolutely killing it. Rick Riordan was initially propelled to superstardom – and onto bookshelves around the world – by making ancient Greek, Norse, and Egyptian mythology relatable and (wonder of wonders) cool for middle schoolers.

After the runaway success of Percy Jackson, Magnus Chase, The Kane Chronicles, and plenty of other related books and series, Riordan could literally have written about anything. He could have explored more of the world’s mythologies and made them his own. And, in fact, his publisher wanted him to do just that.

But that didn’t sit right with him. The rich tapestry of the world’s mythologies weren’t his stories to tell. Instead of doing the obvious thing, Rick Riordan instead chose to do the right thing. And Rick Riordan Presents was born.

He would invite authors from underrepresented cultures to tell their own stories and shine a spotlight on their heritage. Using his name as a catapult, Riordan fully embraced the concept of Own Voices. And every single title released so far has knocked it out of the park.

Thankfully, Tehlor Kay Mejia continues that trend with Paola Santiago and the River of Tears, the first in a new series based on aspects of Mexican folklore.

The world seemed suddenly too big and too small all at once. They were just two kids with a shape-shifting house shoe and a useless crocheted shopping bag, and the world was full of kidnappers, and police who didn’t believe you, and, apparently, sinister magical forces.

Twelve-year-old Paola Santiago is obsessed with space, science, and tangible things she can prove. Her mom? Not so much. Much to Pao’s great embarrassment, her mom is superstitious, burns incense to ward off evil spirits, reads tarot cards, and seems to be the opposite of Pao in almost all respects.

Most notable are her constant warnings about La Llorona, a ghost who, after drowning her three children, was cursed to wander the banks of the Gila River, forever hunting unsuspecting kids and dragging them down into the river’s murky depths.

To Pao, La Llorona is just a silly story parents tell to scare kids. But when one of her best friends goes missing, Pao’s entire world is turned upside down. Was her friend kidnapped, or was she captured by La Llorona? And could such a thing even be real?

Relatively quickly, Pao finds herself thrust into a world she doesn’t recognize, let alone understand. It’s a world where magic is real, people seem to come back from the dead, monsters exist, and superpowers take the unlikeliest of forms.

It’s an impossible world of fantasmas, chupacabras, and disembodied hands.

If you’ve read… pretty much anything by Rick Riordan or any of the previous RRP books, Pao’s story is – admittedly – a touch predictable. But that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable or thrilling. Mejia imbues Paola Santiago with an urgency and relevance that many of the other RRP books lack.

Because, ultimately, this is a story about the trauma so often caused by migration across borders. In our world, we see it when families are ripped apart just for seeking a patch of sand on the other side of a wall. We see it when kids are separated from their parents and put in cages. We see it when those who “safely” cross just end up getting demonized… and cast as the villain.

All for wanting a better life.

Pao sees these things, too. Her life isn’t a fantasy in which immigration, deportations, and racism don’t exist. She sees people in her apartment building disappear in the middle of the night after getting a visit from federal agents. She meets kids who lost parents because they dared to cross a border together. She’s ignored and dismissed by police because of the color of her skin.

These things are all too painfully real, and Pao’s world is shaped by powers well beyond her control. Powers that often feel malevolent and determine who is allowed to stay… and who isn’t.

So when Pao inadvertently crosses from the real world to a liminal space between our world and the realms of magic and demons… and then from that space into the literal jaws of hell, she discovers that the act of crossing a border (whether it’s an arbitrary line on a map or terrifying mouth full of demons) can be scary and fraught with peril, but it can also be empowering.

Her journey shows her that she has the ability to fight back and reclaim some power over her life. That she is not the monster she fears she might be. That she has a scary amount of strength and determination inside. That there is nothing more important than family. That dogs are the absolute best.

Pao tried to feel comforted by the constellations, as she had so often before. But her problems were no longer those of an almost seventh grader stuck in a tiny apartment with her superstitious mom. Before, her world had been too small. The stars had encouraged her with the promise of more. Now her world was too big, too full of impossible problems that rested on only her shoulders.

Paola Santiago and the River of Tears is, as I said, the first of a series. (Paola Santiago and the Forest of Nightmares is slated for a summer 2021 release.) Though this book primarily deals with the legend of La Llorona, it also leaves the door open for many more adventures.

The juiciest bit to explore is probably Pao’s own family. We don’t learn much about her mother, and we know almost nothing about her absent father. (Regular Riordan readers will recognize this trope and likely guess what it implies for Pao.) Surprisingly, Mejia only teases us with a single line of inner dialogue that hints at her father’s identity. Surely, this will become more important and play a role in future stories.

And I, for one, am fully on board for those future stories.