Magnolia Flower
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
A Kirkus and Shelf Awareness Best Book of 2022! A Bank Street College of Education’s Children’s Book Committee’s Best Children’s Books of the Year pick!
From beloved African American folklorist Zora Neale Hurston comes a moving adaptation by National Book Award winner and #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist and Antiracist Baby, Ibram X. Kendi. Magnolia Flower follows a young Afro Indigenous girl who longs for freedom and is gorgeously illustrated by Loveis Wise (The People Remember, Ablaze with Color).
Born to parents who fled slavery and the Trail of Tears, Magnolia Flower is a girl with a vibrant spirit. Not to be deterred by rigid ways of the world, she longs to connect with others, who too long for freedom. She finds this in a young man of letters who her father disapproves of. In her quest to be free, Magnolia must make a choice and set off on a journey that will prove just how brave one can be when leading with one’s heart.
The acclaimed writer of several American classics, Zora Neale Hurston wrote this stirring folktale brimming with poetic prose, culture, and history. It was first published as a short story in The Spokesman in 1925 and later in her collection Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick (2020).
Tenderly retold by #1 New York Times bestselling and National Book Award-winning author Ibram X. Kendi, Magnolia Flower is a story of a transformative and radical devotion between generations of Indigenous and Black people in America. With breathtaking illustrations by Loveis Wise, this picture book reminds us that there is no force strong enough to stop love.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kendi (Antiracist Baby) adapts a short story by Hurston (1891–1960) in this visually stunning foray into folklore, as related by a mighty river to a babbling brook. Asked to tell of people in love, the river reminisces about Bentley, a Black man who escaped slavery, and Swift Deer, a Cherokee woman who fled "her own trail of tears." They marry, living in "a whole village of runaways/... on an island of freedom/ in a vast sea of slavery," and they have a daughter, Magnolia Flower, who arrives "at the time of the flowers opening." In Magnolia's lifetime, war over slavery comes and goes: "Black people walked/ free on the lands of Swift Deer's ancestors." Then John, a brown-skinned man who "had many words," wins a now-grown Magnolia's heart despite her father's disapproval, and they take to the river to row away—returning 47 years later. Digital illustrations from Wise (The People Remember) make for a bountiful, nature-centered accompaniment to this romance set against the changing landscape of freedom for Black and Indigenous peoples. A historical note and author's note contextualize themes of oppression, resistance, and love, as well as Hurston's expertise in Black folklore. Ages 4–8.
