When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. Unlike the elusive Bigfoot, there is little left to the imagination in this quirky mother-daughter story for studious readers.Ĭhainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.Įvery four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. However, these skillfully in-depth descriptors often usurp the pace and plot. Her complex internal dialogues and descriptors allow readers to visualize, in minute detail, every physical and mental aspect of each character and their current surroundings. Although Miranda is introduced as the perfect Asian student, Kat acts as a foil and provides conflict enough to allow a fully rounded personality to develop. Very quickly her plans fall through, leading her to question everything. Desperate, she plans her own Bigfoot search with her mom with the goal of shaming her into reality and, at the very least, responsible parenting. Her anxiety surfacing in a hair-pulling habit, Miranda tries to take her mom’s comical eccentricities in stride until she discovers a drawer full of unpaid bills threatening eviction and any possibility of her dreams coming true. This means last-minute trips to remote wilderness chasing the next big sighting of Bigfoot with little success. Her mom, Kat, who is also Asian-American, is a cryptozoologist-a serious one. The only problem is that she is on the verge of losing credits from too many absences.

She is student-body president and aims to go to a prestigious leadership camp in Washington, D.C. A skeptical middle schooler gets more than she bargained for in her own search for Bigfoot.Īsian-American Miranda Cho, 12, has big plans, with the lists to prove it.

The Bigfoot Files by Lindsay Eagar