Zora and Me

Zora and Me by Victoria Bond and T. R. Simon
2011 Corretta Scott King new talent award

I didn't realize this was an award winner until just now. I was going to post about it anyhow, because I thought it was very good. I found it because I was looking for books about Florida to share with the kids before we traveled there earlier this fall. This book caught my eye while I was searching because Zora Neale Hurston's book Their Eyes Were Watching God is one of my all time favorite books, and this book is a fictionalized account of her growing up years in Eatonville Florida.

It's based on her writing and other historical info and is true enough to fact that it is the only project to be endorsed by the Zora Neale Hurston Trust that was not written by Hurston herself.

I read this one aloud to Jabu (age 10) and we both enjoyed it. I was a little worried about selling him on it at first, but I shouldn't have been concerned. . . the first chapter tells the story of an alligator attack! He was hooked from that point on!

The characters of Zora and her friends (one of whom is telling the story), the people of Eatonville both distinguished and odd, were all people I was glad to meet and the authors did a great job of bringing them to life.

There were several strands of the story that I appreciated very much. One featured a misunderstood loner named Mr. Pendir who the kids in the book spent most of the story being completely afraid of. Turns out "All the time Mr. Pendir had lived in Eatonville knocking around in his old house, alone and weary-looking, he had been making things, and the things he made were beautiful."

But the one that still stays with me the strongest (I'm writing this actually a couple of months after reading the book) involved a sister and a brother of mixed race. The brother was brown, the sister could "pass" and DID. The price of turning away from her people was very dear and watching Jabu come to realize that as the story unfolded was definitely worth the read all by itself.

I liked this book very much and would recommend it.