SMALL-GIRL ZORA AND THE SHOWER OF STORIES
A Tall Tale Based on the Life and Work of Zora Neale Hurston
by Giselle Anatol ; illustrated by Raissa Figueroa
“My stories are gonna change the world,” young Zora Neale Hurston declares—and they do!
Small-Girl Zora seems to invite trouble, climbing trees and sneaking out to play tag with the moon. She also tells wild stories, dismissed by some (“All a girl needs to know is how to change the sheets”), but to her Granny, they’re woven magic. That summer, the town is plagued by drought, and Small-Girl Zora is determined to fill Mama’s old watering can with “tears of JOY and LAUGHTER” that she’s convinced her tall tales can elicit. Whether visiting Mr. Starks’ general store to boast about hens that lay eggs by the dozen or stopping by Mr. Tea Cake and Miss Janie’s sugar cane fields, where her tales “spill out higgledy-piggledy,” Small-Girl tenaciously showers willing (and not-so-willing) listeners with endless stories, inviting the rain that finally arrives. Anatol’s author’s note is an enlightening delight, revealing parallels with the life and literature of the real Zora that she cleverly wove into this fictional account of the writer’s childhood. Figueroa, who illustrated Anatol’s Small-Girl Toni and the Quest for Gold (2023), enlivens Small-Girl Zora’s enthusiasm in full color, effusive with details on every page. Mr. Starks’ store interior is particularly memorable, with signs for S&H Green Stamps and Buster Brown Bread. All characters are brown-skinned, reflecting the actual Zora’s historically all-Black community of Eatonville, Florida.
A dynamically imagined, girl power–infused re-creation of an acclaimed author’s childhood.
(Picture book. 5-10)