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). One year and three months ago, her mother, Doreen, went missing from Water Island where Caroline lives with her father. Caroline plans to take her father’s blue boat to find her mother, but she isn’t sure where to look. She also has the extraordinary ability to see spirits—a secret she has shared with no one—and as she searches, she deals with spirits like the foreboding woman in black. She attends Catholic School on Saint Thomas Island, where bullies (especially Anise Fowler) harass her because she is the smallest girl with the darkest skin. Her racist teacher, Missus Wilhelmina, treats her abusively.

When Caroline is blamed for a fight Anise started, the principal, Miss Loretta Joseph (or Miss Joe) attempts to support Caroline and gives her a purple journal. Caroline wants to make friends at school, but Anise influences everyone, even Marie, a quiet, white girl everyone calls Marie Antoinette.

A new girl from Barbados, Kalinda Francis, arrives at school. When Anise picks on Kalinda about her hair, Kalinda handles it with a joke that makes the entire class laugh, and Anise invites her to sit at her table. Caroline wants to befriend Kalinda but is afraid she’s missed her chance since Anise got to her first.

On Water Island, a mother and girl arrive. The daughter is named Bernadette and is much younger than Caroline, and she tells Caroline the two of them are sisters. Caroline asks her father about Bernadette, but he doesn’t answer. She asks if he knows where her mother is; in her emotional state, she uses a curse word, and her father slaps her cheek. She takes a vow of silence until Miss Joe reveals she knows her mother. However, Miss Joe tells Caroline that she should learn to live without her mother. Caroline decides her father and Miss Joe can’t be trusted and that she must search for her mother in secret.

At school, Caroline sees another spirit—and catches Kalinda looking at the same spirit. Now Caroline wonders if Kalinda can see spirits, too. She gets the courage to talk to Kalinda, but Kalinda deflects Caroline’s question about seeing anything. Kalinda invites Caroline over after school, and as they walk through tourist shops, they see two white women holding hands. Kalinda says it’s disgusting, and Caroline is heartbroken by this, but she goes along with it since she has feelings for Kalinda. She still wants to know if Kalinda can see spirits.

Caroline decides the woman in black must have something to do with her mother’s disappearance. She tells Kalinda, who admits she also can see spirits and agrees to help. Relieved, Caroline writes a love letter to Kalinda in the purple journal, but Anise finds it first and reads it aloud to the class. Kalinda rushes home, and the school bullies assault Caroline. Later, her father admits Bernadette is her sister. He reveals that Doreen is somewhere on the island of Saint Thomas.

Caroline tells Kalinda that her mother is on the island, and this breaks the silence between them. They sneak into Miss Joe’s office and steal a photo of Miss Joe and Doreen, and the photo has an address written on the back. The next day at school, Kalinda is gone; Missus Wilhelmina says that Kalinda is going back to Barbados and isn’t a student at the Saint Thomas school anymore. Caroline confronts Kalinda at her house and asks her to help find her mother before she leaves. A tropical storm is coming, and as the weather worsens, Kalinda admits she also has feelings for Caroline. They go to the address on the photo and meet a woman who tells them Doreen lives just over the hill.

At Doreen’s house, Caroline and Kalinda find Doreen’s husband, Richard, and his daughter, Katie—but Doreen is gone. Richard tells Caroline she shouldn’t be there, but Doreen pulls up in a car and drops her groceries when she sees Caroline. She and Caroline embrace and cry together, and Doreen invites Caroline inside. Kalinda waits outside.

Doreen explains to Caroline why she left: Doreen was miserable and even attempted suicide, but she got treatment and then traveled the world. She unexpectedly fell in love with Richard when she came back to Saint Thomas, and they got married. Doreen now explains she was lonely on Water Island after Caroline’s father fell in love with another woman and had Bernadette. Upset, Caroline runs out of the house, and Kalinda is gone. Back on Water Island, Caroline takes her father’s boat out into the storm, but a wave sweeps her into the sea, where she is pulled beneath the waves. Sinking into the ocean, she sees the woman in black underwater—just before she loses consciousness.

Caroline wakes up in the hospital. Her father says Mister Lochana found her washed ashore. He also tells her that her mother has visited her several times, but Caroline wants nothing to do with her. A letter arrives from Kalinda telling Caroline she loves and misses her, but Kalinda is happy to be with her mother in Barbados and asks for Caroline to write back. At school, Miss Joe tells Caroline she spoke with Doreen and knows their meeting was difficult. Caroline tells Miss Joe about the woman in black, and Miss Joe asks Caroline if she believes in guardian angels. The question triggers Caroline’s memory of the woman in black being a source of warmth and protection when she washed ashore.

Caroline is ready to speak to her mother again. Doreen arrives and says Katie has been asking about her and that they would all love to be in Caroline’s life if she lets them. Caroline asks her mother why she used to sing “Blackbird” all the time, and her mother explains how it captured the way she felt at the time. Caroline understands and welcomes Doreen back into her life.

The woman in black hasn’t appeared in months, but Caroline believes she will always be with her. At school, Caroline notices Marie sitting by herself all week and asks to sit with her. Marie explains Anise was never her friend, but she didn’t have the courage to stand up to her. Marie tells Caroline it’s been an eventful year, and Caroline replies that she can’t wait to hear all about it.