It's Monday - It's a Giveaway

          Visit Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders to see what they've been reading, along with everyone else who link up.  

           Thanks to Candlewick Press, I'm thrilled to offer a giveaway of two prize packs of a paperback of Zora & Me by Victoria Bond and T.R. Simon and the next adventure, Zora & Me - The Cursed Ground by T.R. Simon out next week!  Zora & Me is a new story to me although it came out in 2010 and received the John Steptoe New Talent Award. US & Canada only, no PO boxes!

             I have fallen in love with these stories, these characters. 

            Racial duplicity threatens an idyllic African American community in the turn-of-the-century South in a debut inspired by the early life of Zora Neale Hurston. a fascinating slice of history. Eatonville, Florida, was ‘the first incorporated all-black township in the United States.’ That was in 1887. It was also the place where the family of Zora Neale Hurston, one of America’s most esteemed writers, moved in 1894, and where she grew up from the age of three years.

           This early fictional story of the child, Zora Neale Hurston, can be enjoyed on several levels. First, the idea of children off on their own adventures through the marshes is something I would wish for every child. Second, to love that the idea of stories believed and imagined comes from a wonderful storyteller herself, Ms. Hurston. No matter whether she tells truth or stretches it, her friends stick by her and end up in a bit of trouble because of it, but they don't mind. The authors chose to let Zora’s best friend Carrie tell the story, of Zora’s created shape-shifting gator man who lives in the marshes, waiting to steal human souls. When a man recently met is found dead by the railroad tracks, serious, and grown-up, complications arise. This is a calm and comforting African-American town whose peace and security is in danger. Though a middle-grade novel, the story is complex, bringing family struggles in along with community heroes who know justice needs to be served. Not everyone, including Zora, understands just what that means until the ending. 

            Reviews share that this astonishing novel is the first project ever to be endorsed by the Zora Neale Hurston Trust that was not authored by Hurston herself.  If readers want to sit on the edge of their seats while reading, this is a book to read!

            Added at the back is more information about Ms. Hurston: a timeline, a brief biography, and an annotated bibliography.

        Now, a second adventure is coming September 11th, with Zora's family, the neighbors, the townspeople all here again, but the danger seems even more real. Carrie shares this story of a white man's challenge, a mystery that becomes connected as I read the chapters. Carrie's words alternate in chapters from Eatonville 1903 and a new place, Westin, in 1855, from where a young girl names Lucia tells another story. The children, Zora, Carrie, and Teddy, are all involved again, searching out new mysteries they did not know about their town and the people in it who were keeping them safe. Early in the story, Carrie says she didn't hold the scrapes they had against Zora, because "She made life in a town no bigger than a teacup feel like it held the whole world." 

      As the story unfolds, perhaps one can imagine it as connected to the whole world. Those with power try to take advantage of those who have little, yet also those who hold the goodness of human dignity above all else stand up to support despite the danger. Simon writes: "The men of Eatonville did not grow darker with the fading light; rather, they seemed to shine brighter in it." Later: "These men had fathered and made this town whole in spite of the hate of an entire nation." This time the tension is real, but the actions inspire.

       Yes, like the first book, this second story is complex and a fascinating fictional adventure that I imagine Zora Neale Hurston would have loved. 

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Now reading: One new from Candlewick, Merci Suarez Changes Gears by Meg Medina. I dropped that one adult book, just could not get interested, and also started Birds Art Life by Kyo Maclear.