Bayou Magic
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A magical coming-of-age story from Coretta Scott King honor author Jewell Parker Rhodes, rich with Southern folklore, friendship, family, fireflies and mermaids– plus an environmental twist.
It's city-girl Maddy's first summer in the bayou, and she just falls in love with her new surroundings– the glimmering fireflies, the glorious landscape, and something else, deep within the water, that only she can see. Could it be a mermaid?
As her grandmother shares wisdom about sayings and signs, Maddy realizes she may be the only sibling to carry on her family's magical legacy. And when a disastrous oil leak threatens the bayou, she knows she may also be the only one who can help. But does she have what it takes to be a hero?
A tale rich with folk magic, set in the wake of the Gulf oil spill, Bayou Magic celebrates hope and the magic within– and captures the wonder of life in the Deep South.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
One summer, nearly-10-year-old Maddy Johnson gets swept up in the mysteries of the Louisiana bayou. She's the youngest of her five sisters and the last to spend a summer with her Grandm re Lavalier, hours from her family's home in New Orleans. Quickly adapting to life in her grandmother's wooden shack, Maddy learns about signs and healing herbs, listens to tales about her ancestors, explores the waters with a boy named Bear, meets other locals (who, like Maddy, are a "stew" of ethnic backgrounds), and thinks she sees a mermaid, the legendary Mami Wata. Grandm re's quiet sadness about the past and worry for the future ("To be a hero, bad things have to happen," she tells Maddy) strike notes of unsettling and suspenseful tension. Readers will be easily drawn into Rhodes's (Sugar) heady descriptions, and as environmental disaster threatens the landscape Maddy has come to love, her heroism shines as she protects the community and recognizes her own strength. Ages 8 12.
