Skip to main content

Jump AT The Sun: The True Life Tale of Unstoppable Storycatcher Zora Neale Hurston

 



Written by Alicia Williams
Illustrated by Jacqueline Alcantara
Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2021. Biography.

Zora loved to listen to tales. She could sit for hours and just drink in the folktales of home,  like bee's to honey she was drawn to stories. When she was younger she would look for any excuse to go down to Joe Clarke's store and sit on the front porch and listen to the tales being swapped . When she started telling her own tales, her father and grandmother would get upset with her for telling lies, but her mother saw the value in her stories and she encouraged her to "jump at the sun." Her mother said she may not land on the sun but at least she would get off the ground. So Zora did just as her mother said and she jumped. Even when life was hard she continued to jump and try and through determination and grit she eventually achieved her dream of becoming a writer of stories.

This delightful biography will inspire you to want to learn more, read more, and dream more. The text and illustrations of this book showcase Zora's world in beautiful rich colors that captures the lively enthusiasm and passion Zora had for life and for storytelling. This is a well told inspirational book about Zora Hurston's life and her drive to become a story-catcher. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Funny Farm by Mark Teague 2009

There are things I liked about Mark Teague's newest book, Funny Farm , and things I didn't like. Where should I start? I'll do the "didn'ts" first. The illustrations show animals personified. Well, some of the animals are. The main characters, Edward, and his farm family relatives, all dogs, are humanized. They stand upright, do farm chores, eat at a table, wear clothes, knit (yes, with paws) and sleep in beds. Most everybody else on and around the farm, who are also animals, act like animals. They are outside, roll in mud, live in the barn, and require care from their owners. It struck me the most on the page spread where there are pigs playing in puddle in the rain and Edward, a black and white boxer, watches from inside the house. I thought "You're a dog! Go play with them!" But, alas, he can't, seeing as how he goes through his entire visit to the farm wearing a suit and red bow tie. Another picture that bothered me was the maple syrup pa...

The Girl Who Could Fly by Victoria Forester 2008

J Fiction 328 pages I almost didn't finish this book. I got to Chapter 4, and was just about ready to quit (a kind of slow story about a girl, name of Piper McCloud, who discovers she can fly, parents freak out, she becomes a social outcast, yadda, yadda) but suddenly, right there in Chapter 4, the story takes a sharp turn and becomes really interesting . Piper finds herself in the company of others like her, but not "fliers", and under the care and authority of Dr. Hellion. I won't even tell you any more. Read this book. Forester does a great job of keeping you wondering who's the good guy and who's the bad? Piper is a likeable, strong, endearing character that girl readers will enjoy. But don't NOT give it to boys! The main male character is an extremely intelligent young man who is one of the ones you wonder about . . . good or bad? This is a good one, well worth your time.

Review: The Factory

The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages.  Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...