Race to the Sun

Nizhoni struggles with sleeplessness, puzzling over everything Mr. Charles told her. She considers running away but knows that she can’t leave Mac. Out loud, she describes feeling lost over what to do if her dad doesn’t believe her. She reacts with shock when she gets a response and realizes that her toy horned toad, Mr. Yazzie, has come to life. Alarmed but not panicked, Nizhoni listens as Mr. Yazzie speaks to her in both English and Navajo, as her shimásání taught her to “keep an open mind” about “seemingly supernatural things” (54). She recalls the museum gift shop where she purchased Mr. Yazzie, liking both that horned toads were “considered a blessing and a symbol of protection by traditional Navajos” and that “he was soft and fluffy but tough and prickly at the same time” (55), which is how she sees herself.

Mr. Yazzie reports that he has come alive to help Nizhoni defeat Mr. Charles and laments that her father either doesn’t know or has forgotten the “old stories.” He worries that traditional stories are not transmitted intergenerationally as they once were, something he attributes to both elders and young people. Nizhoni realizes that she saw her first monster shortly after her kinaalda (coming-of-age ceremony), which Mr.