Fourteen-year-old Samuel travels to his father’s hometown to fulfill his mother’s dying wish that he light a candle at the statue of St. Anthony there. Samuel also plans to kill his father, who abandoned his mother and him years before. Candeia is a run-down village and Samuel finds no sign of his father when he arrives. Sheltering in a grotto in the nearby woods, he realizes it’s the giant head of the statue of St. Anthony, which was never completed. Inside the head, Samuel can hear local women praying to the saint, all of them longing for love. Samuel sees no reason why he shouldn’t help answer the women’s prayers. With the help of two young men he meets, Samuel begins nudging budding romances into blossom. Soon, women and pilgrims are flocking to Candeia and the small town slowly comes back to life. Samuel wonders who the voice of one mysterious young woman that is sweeter than all the others belongs to. He also wonders about his father, who was the unfinished statue’s engineer, and his wealthy grandmother, who has remained sequestered in her home for years. Mystery and comedy and goodness all are woven into the fabric of a story that also reflects the realities of poverty, politics, and religion in a small Brazilian town where a young man who arrived with nothing finds community, family, friendship, and love. (Age 12 and older)

n search of his father, Samuel travels by foot from his home in Brazil to the faded, remote village of Candeia, kicking off an unexpected chain of events. In the forest, he takes refuge inside a giant concrete head that belonged to the statue of a saint, where he can hear the prayers of local women and mysterious singing. Samuel sets out to answer the prayers of these women, sparking the rebirth of Candeia, and to discover who is singing to him. Along the way, Samuel learns the truth about his father and finds his soulmate in this blend of religious faith and magic.

USBBY 2017 Outstanding International Books List, Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) Choices Selection 2017, Center for the Study of Multicultural Children's Literature Best Books Selection 2016.

Author is from Brazil.

Portuguese. Originally published in Sao Paulo, Brazil as Cabeça do santo by Companhia das Letras in 2014. English translation by Daniel Hahn published in the United States by Delacorte Press in 2016.

A 2017 LA Times Book Prize Finalist

A quirky story of love, mischief, and forgiveness from Brazil's foremost award-winning author for young readers, in her U.S. debut.

Fourteen-year-old Samuel is newly orphaned and homeless in a small town in Brazil. He lives in a giant, hollow, concrete head of St. Anthony, the lingering evidence of the village's inept and failed attempt to build a monolith over a decade ago. He didn't know what it was when he crawled into it, seeking shelter during a storm, but since coming there, he hears beautiful singing, echoing like magic in the head twice a day. So he stays.

Miraculously, he can also hear the private prayers and longings of the villagers. Feeling mischievous, Samuel begins to help answer these prayers, hoping that if he does, their noise will quiet down and he can listen to the beautiful singing in peace. Ironically, his miracles gain him so many fans that he starts to worry he will never fulfill his own true longing and find the source of the singing.

Filled with beautiful turns of phrase and wonderfully quirky characters, The Head of the Saint is a riotous story of faith and magic that won't soon leave your thoughts.