Charlie Hernandez and the League of Shadows by Ryan Calejo
I had the same issue with this as I did with the first book in the "Tristan Strong" series; there were too many myths at once. The writing is solid and the characters are compelling, but I am not familiar with Hispanic mythology and I wanted to spend more time with all of the myths. Charlie is living in a foster home because his parents mysteriously disappeared after their house caught on fire. Now, he is manifesting animal traits: horns for a bit, then feathers, then a lobster claw. The cutest girl in his grade, Violet, who is also the head of the student newspaper and a good investigative journalist, go on this adventure that they are hoping will lead him to his missing parents. Instead, it takes him to a skeleton who guards a graveyard, La Lorna, a horse woman, and good witch and a bad witch who happen to be sisters. Turns out, the foster parent is the bad witch and she turned his parents into figurines. He tricks her into killing herself and he survives and then the good witch shows back up. All of this is because he is the mythical Changling who can defeat the League of Shadows. This was a good addition to the youth mythology adventure books that have been doing so well post Percy Jackson. I will read more of this series, but I hope they don't shove so many myths into each story, so that we can really get a feel for them.
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