Hurricane Child

Hurricane Child is a middle-grade debut novel by Kacen Callender. The realistic fantasy and coming-of-age book was published in March 2018 by Scholastic Press and received the Stonewall Book Award and the Lambda Literary Award in 2019. (While the author’s name on the cover is Kheryn, they are trans and prefer to be called Kacen.) Callender was born in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, where Hurricane Child is set. Kacen is a queer Black writer, and the protagonist, Caroline Murphy, is a queer Black child. As Caroline searches the island for her missing mother, her first-person point of view incorporates her memories of her mother alongside her everyday challenges: island culture, bullies, ghosts, and the feelings she has for the new girl at school, Kalinda Francis.

This study guide refers to the 2018 Scholastic e-book edition. While there is no explicit language in this novel, there are some mature themes: depression, hauntings, abandonment, and a brief conversation about suicide.

Plot Summary

The novel opens with Caroline Murphy’s memory of her mother singing “Blackbird” by Nina Simone. The lyrics appear throughout Hurricane Child, symbolizing Caroline’s challenges as a young Black girl born during a hurricane (which she is told means she is cursed).