Zeeta and her free-spirited mom, Layla, have lived in a different country every year of her life - 15 years, 15 countries. Zeeta's life is always full of new people and new experiences, and to make sure she doesn't forget anything or anyone, she writes everything down in her notebooks - a different color for each country. This year, when Layla gets the itch to move, they're on a plane from Thailand to Ecuador. Amazing, right? Nope. All Zeeta wants is to know what it's like to be normal - to settle down and live in a normal house, with a normal mom and a normal dad. She'd even settle for just knowing who her dad is - all Layla can tell her is that his initials were J.C., and she met him on a Greek island. Or, at the very least, for Layla to find a normal boyfriend - one who isn't a surfing instructor or a Taoist clown.
A week after arriving in Otavalo, Ecuador, Zeeta meets Wendell. A boy who looks like an Otavaleño (indigenous descendants of the Inca) but who acts like an American and speaks no Spanish, he's wandering through the market, lost, when Zeeta's new friend Gaby spots him. When he gets to Zeeta, he tells her that what he wants most in the world is to find his birth parents - and he wants her to help him.
All Wendell has to guide his search is the knowledge that his mother came from a village near Otavalo and a small, translucent crystal that was wrapped in his blankets when his mother gave him up. When Zeeta asks Gaby for advice, she suggests they take the bus to Agua Santa, a small village that's known locally for its healers and their use of special rocks and crystals. What they find there is a village with buried secrets, new friends, hidden danger, and only the beginning of their adventure.
Near the equator and 8000 feet high in the Andes Mountains, Laura Resau brings the lush, colorful beauty of the Ecuador landscape, its people and culture into bright life as Zeeta and Wendell search Otavalo, Agua Santa and the surrounding country for Wendell's birth parents. Mystic waterfalls with magical wishing powers, crystal caves, bustling markets, and local cuisine (look up cuy if you want an interesting Andean dish!) all make up this cultural feast. Also journeying deep into the human heart in their search for family, Zeeta and Wendell each find that there are many different kinds of family and love - and that sometimes, family has nothing to do with genetics. For readers who enjoy a good mystery, long to travel the world (especially Latin America!), have ever searched for their true self, or just love a really good story, check out The Indigo Notebook!
Megan (now reading The Ruby Notebook, the story of Zeeta's 16th year and 16th country - France!)
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