Module 5: Zora and Me, Coretta Scott King citation, 2011

Citation
Bond, V. & Simon, T. R.  (2010).  Zora and Me.  Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press.

Summary

Carrie and her friend, Zora Neale Hurston, thrive in the close-knit community of Eatonville, Florida, true childhood home of the well-respected writer of Their Eyes Were Watching God and recorder of oral history.  Zora's imagination and storytelling figure prominently in the novel, full of legend and mystery of the Gator King and a grisly murder; Carrie, whose father left the family for reasons unknown, struggles with grief and loss.  Racial identity, family dynamics, imagination, storytelling, and loss all find their way into this story.  Bond and Simon have collaborated on a captivating and resonant novel for junior high students and up.

Impression
I sincerely enjoyed this novel, and I can certainly see why it won the award for promising new talent.  I have to admit that I was skeptical going into the reading of this story, for I remain a fan of Zora Neale Hurston and had a difficult time imagining how the authors would render her childhood self.  The book skillfully provides a sense of place, and its characters became real to me through the authors' adept narration.  The following quote really touched me:

"The bad things that happen to you in life don't define misery -- what you do with them does.  When Mr. Pendir and Gold could have chosen connection, they chose solitude; when they could have brought loving themselves to loving someone else, they wore masks and shunned love's power.  You can't hide from life's pain, and folks that love you would never expect you to."

I feel that Zora Neale Hurston would be pleased.

Review
Rochman, H.  (2010).  Zora and me [book review].  Booklist, 107(4), 64.  Retrieved from EBSCOhost
Told in the immediate first-person voice of 10-year-old Carrie, Zora Neale Hurston’s best childhood friend, this first novel is both thrilling and heartbreaking. Each chapter
is a story that evokes the famous African American writer’s early years in turn-of-the-last-century Eatonville, Florida, and the sharp, wry vignettes build to a climax, as Carrie and Zora eavesdrop on adults and discover secrets. Family is front and center, but true to Hurston’s work, there is no reverential message: Carrie mourns for her dad, who went to Orlando for work and never came back; Zora’s father is home, but he rejects her for being educated and “acting white,” unlike her favored sister. Racism is part of the story, with occasional use of the n-word in the colloquial narrative. Like Hurston, who celebrated her rich roots but was also a wanderer at heart, this novel of lies and revelations will reach a wide audience, and some strong readers will want to follow up with Hurston’s writings, including Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). The novel’s back matter includes a short biography of Hurston, an annotated bibliography of her groundbreaking work, and an endorsement by the Zora Neale Hurston Trust. —Hazel Rochman

Suggestions for use
This book would be a fascinating read in conjunction with Their Eyes Were Watching God (if so, this pairing would be for 9th grade and up, the material of the latter being more mature).  For middle schoolers, this book would be an excellent springboard into the life and work of Hurston, one of the most influential and important American writers of the 20th century.  It would certainly be an excellent book to feature for a display during Black History Month, but I would say that its heroines deserve to be compared with Scout Finch.  In fact, reading Zora and Me in conjunction with To Kill a Mockingbird would be a fabulous study in the depiction of race, dialect, and place.  I could see this book as being a part of such a comparative study for advanced middle schoolers.