A new children’s book, Small-Girl Zora and the Shower of Stories: A Tall Tale Based on the Life and Work of Zora Neale Hurston, written by Giselle Anatol and illustrated by Raissa Figueroa, is now available from Penguin Random House.
Description: “A tall tale inspired by the life and works of American writer, folklorist, and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston…”
Small-girl Zora knows her stories are going to change the world. Although her neighbors might not believe her outlandish tales, she’s sure they’re the key to ending the drought in her town. If she can make people laugh at her stories, she’ll be able to gather enough tears to bring back her mama’s garden and more. But when things don’t go exactly as planned, Zora learns that with creativity, determination, and faith, a little magic might be possible.
Filled to the brim with references to Zora Neale Hurston’s classic characters and details from her own life, Small-Girl Zora and the Shower of Stories is a joyful tribute to an icon of American literature and the everlasting power of storytelling.
Giselle Anatol is a professor of English at the University of Kansas. She specializes in Caribbean, U.S. African American, and multicultural American literature, as well as works for young readers. In 2015, she published The Things That Fly in the Night: Female Vampires in Literature of the Circum-Caribbean and African Diaspora (Rutgers University Press). This book takes up a demonic, skin-shedding, bloodsucking figure from the Trinidadian folklore of Anatol’s youth, and explores the significance of different incarnations of the creature in children’s stories, calypso lyrics, travel writing, and contemporary adult fiction. Anatol has also edited three collections of scholarly essays on popular fantasy literature for children and young adults: Reading Harry Potter (2003), a follow-up volume called Reading Harry Potter Again (2009) and Bringing Light to Twilight: Perspectives on the Pop Culture Phenomenon (2011).
Most recently, Anatol made her debut in creative writing with the picture book Small-Girl Toni and the Quest for Gold, illustrated by Coretta Scott King honoree Raissa Figueroa (Viking 2023), and a contribution to the middle-grade horror anthology The Haunted States of America (Henry Holt/Macmillan 2024). [. . .]
Raissa Figueroa [. . .] was born on the San Diego Naval Base to Puerto Rican-Colombian parents. A lifelong doodler she eventually went on to earn a B.S. in Communication Design at CSU Monterey Bay after leaving her nursing studies behind at UC Irvine. She never left her love of art behind though, and went on a self-taught illustration journey while working full-time as a graphic designer. She now gets to illustrate books for a living.
Her vibrant, textured art appears in books such as the Oona series, We Wait for the Sun, which won her a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor, Real To Me, Like So, and many more!
For more information, see https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/678104/small-girl-zora-and-the-shower-of-stories-by-giselle-anatol-illustrated-by-raissa-figueroa/Q
For more on the author, see https://english.ku.edu/people/giselle-anatol and https://giselleanatol.com/
For more on the illustrator, visit https://rizzyfig.com/
A Tall Tale Based on the Life and Work of Zora Neale Hurston
A new children’s book, Small-Girl Zora and the Shower of Stories: A Tall Tale Based on the Life and Work of Zora Neale Hurston, written by Giselle Anatol and illustrated by Raissa Figueroa, is now available from Penguin Random House. Description: “A tall tale inspired by the life and works of American writer, folklorist, and
