In Meg Medina’s new young adult novel, a 13-year-old girl becomes a sea ghost

NPR's Book of the Day

NPR

Books, Arts

4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 11 September 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Meg Medina’s new young adult novel begins with a fall: Graciela, a 13-year-old-girl, is blown off a cliff and sucked into the bottom of the sea. A century later, she awakens and her afterlife begins. Most of the characters in Graciela in the Abyss are ghosts and spirits, but Medina says the story is really about life. In today’s episode, she joins NPR’s Scott Simon for a conversation that touches on the author’s “graveyard” of ideas, death as a constant, and her role as the 2023-2024 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature.

To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. I love hearing about the manuscript in the drawer,
0:07.7	the book that's been worked on off and on again for decades. There's something hopeful about a
0:14.0	creative project that needs to take its time to figure itself out. Meg Medina's novel for young people,
0:19.8	Graciella in the abyss, is one of those
0:21.7	works. It's a book about death and the afterlife. She's been working on it since 2010, and it wasn't
0:27.5	until her own mother died, that she figured out the feelings that needed to work their way into the novel.
0:34.2	She talks to NPR Scott Simon about writing about such a heavy subject specifically for
0:38.7	children after the break. In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.
0:45.7	Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, sources and methods.
0:52.3	NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people,
0:56.1	helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.
0:59.6	Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:05.6	Meg Medina's new novel begins with a splash and a shock.
1:09.6	A gust of wind tears 13-year-old Graciella Lima off a cliff.
1:13.6	She crashes into the water and is sucked down to the very bottom of the sea.
1:18.7	When she finally awakened, 100 years later, Graciella sat up, shocked at the dark water all
1:25.8	around her and at her own now translucent skin.
1:30.3	Hagfish, writhing like eels, sucked away the last morsels of meat from what was left of her bones.
1:36.3	There wasn't even time to scream before she heard a voice in the darkness.
1:41.9	Don't be afraid, it said. I'm Amina. And that's when Graciela's afterlife,
1:48.7	or is it another life, begins? Grosiella in the Abyss is the new novel for young readers from
1:55.6	Meg Medina, winner of the Newberry Medal, and a former national ambassador for young
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.