Every building block of story serves a purpose to push the narrative forward, while also setting up major reveals later in the book. From the first line, we are drawn into the world she grew up in. Royce does an excellent job of crafting a compelling story from start to finish. Jez is constantly teased about her family’s involvement in rootwork by the other Black girls in her school, though many of the kids that tease her have parents that frequent her family’s shop for simple remedies for healing medical maladies, as well as spells to address imbalances of the less natural variety. But perhaps even more essentially, it underscores the idea that “not all skinfolk are kinfolk” that Black people experience racism from their country and fellow citizens, but that they are also sometimes looked down upon by people experiencing those same struggles. While that’s incredibly important and powerful to those kids living in families just like the Turners, Root Magic is also a lens through which readers can understand what it was like to grow up during an uncertain and horrifying time to be Black. In short, Root Magic made me feel like I was home again.īut it’s important to note that this book is more than just a trip down memory lane for those of us who grew up with hoodoo. The horrifying stories I heard as a child about boo-hags slipping out of their skin to terrorize folks at night also held the warmth of familiarity, despite its ghastly premise. The references to using graveyard dirt and brick dust for protection brought me back to my own childhood, where my father and grandmother discussed doing the same. Root Magic is also, in many ways, a handbook on practicing conjure work. And we watch a lonely little girl come into her own power, making the unlikeliest of friends in the process. We witness first-hand the Black community’s reaction to the death of John F. Readers are taken on a journey through what it was like to be Black in the South before the Civil Rights Movement. Royce’s debut novel does a lot of heavy lifting, especially considering its classification as a middle grade book. Order now: Apple | Bookshop | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound Ultimately, Jez’s knowledge of hoodoo will be tested in one final showdown between the racist cop and her family. Jez and Jay learn about all manner of magic, from haints and boo-hags to mojo bags and astral projection. Eventually, she and her twin brother, Jay, convince their mother and uncle to let them learn rootwork to help protect them from the local deputy, who has it out for all the rootworkers in his area. Her world is turned upside down by the death, and her family’s protection is lessened because the matriarch is no longer there to work the root to protect them all. Royce’s protagonist, a tween girl named Jezebel, loses her grandmother at the start of this master class in middle grade horror. It’s also incredible for its nuanced view of racism, classism, and outright hatred against those perceived to hold power over others in a way those others don’t quite comprehend. Root Magic is not just important for its subject matter, however. Finally, I got to see child-me on the page. Reading about a little Black girl from the South practicing the ancestral magic I grew up witnessing filled a hole in me I didn’t know existed. Which is why I’m so glad that Eden Royce wrote this book. They tried to ban over 30 books and made national news for their heavy-handed censorship. Not only did books like this not exist in the middle grade world in the ’90s, but even if they had, my school library wouldn’t have carried it. Root Magic is the book I wish I’d had as a little Black girl growing up in the South.
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