Book Club Guide

The Last Cuentista

by Donna Barba Higuera · 2021 · Science Fiction

Key themes

Memory erased — and what survives anyway
Cuentos (stories) as the last connection to a destroyed world
Cultural erasure made literal — and the act of preserving stories as resistance

About this book

Petra Peña, one of the children chosen to journey to a new world after Earth's destruction, wakes from cryosleep to find her memories have been erased by the ship's new ruling order — except for the stories her grandmother told her, which become the only thing she has left of where she came from. Higuera's Newbery Medal-winning novel uses science fiction to explore cultural erasure, memory and the power of storytelling to preserve identity.

Published in 2021, The Last Cuentista won the Newbery Medal in 2022 and the Pura Belpré Award. Higuera has described drawing on her own Mexican-American grandmother's stories and on questions about what is lost when cultures are forced to assimilate.

Discussion questions

Petra's memories are erased by the ship's new order, but the stories her grandmother told her survive. How does Higuera use this premise — what does it suggest about where cultural memory actually lives, separate from individual recall?
The new ruling order on the ship enforces uniformity, erasing difference and history. How does Higuera develop this — as straightforward dystopia, or with more specific resonances to real histories of cultural erasure?
Petra becomes a 'cuentista' — a storyteller — preserving what she knows through the oral tradition her grandmother passed down. What is Higuera saying about storytelling as a form of resistance and survival?
The science fiction premise — humanity fleeing a destroyed Earth — is familiar, but Higuera uses it for a specific cultural argument. How does the SF frame serve material that is fundamentally about cultural preservation?
The Last Cuentista won the Newbery Medal. What does it do that earns this recognition — and how does it use genre fiction to address questions about heritage, memory and what gets carried forward?