Reviews for Zora and Me

The average rating for Zora and Me based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-02-12 00:00:00 Ron Minor People tend to denigrate adaptations, abridgements, those shortcuts to understanding that all of us use from time to time despite their reputations. Admit it. As a student, you read the Cliff Notes, or more likely these days, the Wikipedia summary, of a required text rather than do your homework. Perhaps as an adult, you've refined the process. A few reviews, and you blithely pretend that you've read the book they're talking about at the dinner party. One of the joys of working with kids is that you get to read kids' books. They're easily digestible, but you can still feel like you aren't cheating. They're real books. Many are just as much works of literature as anything the older crowd might consider paragons. Plus you can learn something. Such is the case with 'Zora and Me.' By reading a clever little mystery that could stand alone as just that'a clever little mystery'you're exposed to 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. So you're also introduced to Zora, or a fictionalized fourth grade version of Zora Neale Hurston. Besides appending their book with a timeline of her life and a bibliography, Victoria Bond and T.R. Simon also include a list of children's books based on folktales that Hurston collected. So you can follow up, if you so desire. But that's not a requirement. Which brings me back to the clever little mystery. Cassie has a friend, Zora, already known for her fascination with the tales adults tell, and her own story-telling abilities. When Old Lady Bronson is mysteriously injured at a pond called Blue Sink, Zora conflates the reality of a man-eating alligator and a reclusive old man to produce the story of a man who 'can take on the face of a gator.' Or it seems that is what Zora is doing. Then an event of greater import happens in Eatonville'murder. Cassie, Zora, and their friend Teddy set out to prove the gator man is guilty. And there is something to Zora's theory. But the real shape-shifting, it turns out, has a more insidious source than ghostly gators. The mystery is wrapped up in a wistful coming-of-age story told in wonderfully evocative language'a story where Zora's father lights in on her with special vigor because, 'Sometimes there's nothing more aggravating than looking in a mirror.' A story that takes place in a time before 'the moving pictures and before the radio' when: 'people were accustomed to silence; we even used to hug up on it once in a while. I never though of it as special then, that we could just sit and stare and luxuriate in the comfort of our own thoughts. Without time to think, we wouldn't have had anything to talk about in the first place.' See? You should read kids' books. Kids need adults, and other kids, who can tell them what's good. 'Zora and Me' is. Recommended for fourth graders on up.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-12-22 00:00:00 esa viitanen I fundamentally disagree with the impulse of so many authors/illustrators/publishers to "expose" children to famous authors/artists with these sorts of works. Zora Neale Hurston wrote some incredible things. These things were not meant for children. There's no reason to write a story based on a fictionalized account of her young life in hopes of attracting children to Hurston--it won't, and it shouldn't. Just write a good story for kids. This one was fine. A typical old-timey rural action-packed mystery/let's-learn-about-what's-really-important. Kids who read it aren't going to think to themselves, "This was so fantastic...gee, I'm gonna remember that Zora's character was based on a real person and in ten years, when I'm old enough to read Their Eyes Were Watching God, I'm totally going to." Sorry to be such a grouch about this, but it drives me nutty. I just read a picture book called "Paris in the Spring with Picasso" which tries to entice kids with "Pardonnez-moi--excuse me--I'd like to invite you to a soiree tonight at Gertrude Stein's home."