Jump at the Sun

The True Life Tale of Zora Neale Hurston

Caitlyn Dlouhy Books

(Atheneum Books/ Simon & Schuster) 

(pub. 1.12.2021) 

48 pages

A True Tale with

A Cherry On Top   

A uthor: Alicia D. Williams
       and illustrator: Jacqueline Alcantara

C haracter: Zora Neale Hurston

O verview:

       

    "Zora was a girl who hankered for tales like bees for honey. Now, her mama always told her that if she wanted something, “to jump at de sun”, because even though you might not land quite that high, at least you’d get off the ground. So Zora jumped from place to place, from the porch of the general store where she listened to folktales, to Howard University, to Harlem. And everywhere she jumped, she shined sunlight on the tales most people hadn’t been bothered to listen to until Zora. The tales no one had written down until Zora."

T antalizing taste: 

     "Soon she got to thinking: I want to be a famous author too. So Zora jumped again. She got herself a typewriter, and her fingers got tah tappin' and all her Eatonville memories poured into them pages. One of her stories was even about a little girl, sitting atop a gatepost!"

And something more:  Alicia D. Williams writes in her Author's Note that "it was deeply inspiring to learn of this  unstoppable storycatcher who'd hopped into her Ford coupe, aptly named Sassy  Susie, and traveled throughout the South's back roads during a time of lynching and Jim Crow laws. Zora similarly traversed the deepest parts of Haiti, Jamaica, and the Bahamas and amassed cultural songs, dances, tales, religious practices, and children's games, so that we all may enjoy them today. If it is true that we learn from our ancestors, then her folklore collection is a vast treasure of knowledge."