It’s 1963, and things are changing for Jezebel Turner. Her beloved grandmother has just passed away. The local police deputy won’t stop harassing her family. With school integration arriving in South Carolina, Jez and her twin brother, Jay, are about to begin the school year with a bunch of new kids. But the biggest change comes when Jez and Jay turn eleven— and their uncle, Doc, tells them he’s going to train them in rootwork.
Jez and Jay have always been fascinated by the African American folk magic that has been the legacy of their family for generations—especially the curious potions and powders Doc and Gran would make for the people on their island. But Jez soon finds out that her family’s true power goes far beyond small charms and elixirs…and not a moment too soon. Because when evil both natural and supernatural comes to show itself in town, it’s going to take every bit of the magic she has inside her to see her through.
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My current pet peeve is anyone saying that Jennifer Kale claiming that she walked the road and that the road is real will be a falsehood - her spreading misinformation. Seriously, gaslighting the Black female character is not it.
The. Road. Is. Real.
Billy created a real place. With real effects on the people involved in it. Wanda created real children. Billy is one of them. The Scarlet Witch and Wiccan are capable of creating their own realities. These are not fake after the fact. There are real effects on the people of Westview from Wanda's reality. Imagine how they must have to contend with ptsd from a 'fake' reality. They probably still live together so that they don't feel crazy. Their neighbours validate their experiences.
So much of witchcraft is belief. Billy and Wanda have enough power to make their beliefs fully realised quicker and with nuance and automation. Gaslighting witches is saying that they are crazy to think that what they believe is true.
Jennifer healed Billy with water, moonlight and incantation! Generations of rootwork training from her African-American ancestors!
Anyway, Wanda dismantled her hex, but I'm not convinced that Billy dismantled his road just by putting a solid lid on it. It probably no longer glows blue with his magic, but I bet it exists if another witch's belief seeks it out.
The song itself has created a new belief, no matter the con Agatha thinks it is. In my opinion, the song and the road it leads to continue to be real enough. They both represent hope for wretched witches after all.
Anyway, recommended reading these wonderful books about root work in the Gullah-Geechee culture (Root Magic by Eden Royce) or about root magic in an African-American family with a generational curse uncannily similar to Alice Wu's family (The Legendborn Cycle by Tracy Deonn).
I am shockingly late to the Legendborn party, but holy cow this book is AMAZING. It handles race, systemic racism, systemic institutional racism, mythology, history (especially family history), chattel slavery in the American South, and generational knowledge (and the losing and finding thereof)--and that's before we get into the character-driven themes and arcs. If I had to elevator pitch this book without spoilers, I'd literally have to say "Arthurian legends meet the Antebellum South and then set the consequences in modern-day North Carolina." Let's talk Legendborn.
*I'm going to try not to spoilers below the break, but if you haven't read the book, BE WARNED. There may be spoilers.*
Briana Matthews starts this book buried in grief and in an early college program with one of the most dickish administrators ever. It's established early on that Bree is a good student, so it's not at all surprising that her education in this book is the furthest thing from academic. Bree learns about herself, her family history, and the fully alive and well and living Order of the Round Table. In addition to deeply complicating the idea of thirteen white dudes running the show, author Tracy Deonn also works to highlight the colonialist legacy of British mythologies and how that colonialism maps unsettlingly comfortably into an American context.
This is reinforced in the dual--and diametrically opposed--magic systems in the book. One is an amalgamation of your bog standard magical Arthurian knights magic, and the other is a quietly underground magic system based on African American history and spiritual traditions. To just go ahead and quote Deonn on this: "In particular, I focused on rootwork, also known as hoodoo or conjure. Rootwork was developed by enslaved Africans and their descendants under American chattel slavery, and it can be tracced from its historic origins to varied practices in present-day African American communities. Rootwork is not a centralized tradition, and practitioners from different families, regions, and times have their own gospel on what it looks like." The contrast between the really structured, institutionalized, almost fossilized magic system of the Order and the quiet, private, individualized, living rootwork is stunningly well-handled and throws every other theme and character arc into sharp relief.
Other massive parts of this book are intergrenerational knowledge (and how it is lost, preserved, and rediscovered) and intergenerational trauma. The contrast between chattel slavery forcibly stealing Bree's family history from her and the carefully curated lines of the legendborn--which still turned out to have a few surprises in it--highlights the deeply personal effects of both chattel slavery and institutional racism.
I literally cannnot say enough good things about this book, but I really, really want y'all to go read it, so I am going to stop here before I really spoil anything.
“To my ancestors, including those whose names I’ll never know.”
This is the dedication found in the beginning of the book that sets the tone.
Root Magic is a magical realism, historical fiction, horror middle grade tale about a young girl, Jezebel “Jez” Turner, and her twin brother, Jay, learning the ancestral practice of rootwork and their Gullah-Geechee culture to upkeep their family’s traditions and protect themselves from evil that may lurk in 1960s South Carolina. It’s atmospheric, and the imagery is rich and creepy 😳 sometimes. A fantastic, slow burn debut.
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Debut You is an interview feature on Our Stories Matter blog. Debut authors, who have released or have upcoming releases in 2021, are given five questions to answer about themselves and their book.
Read an👇🏿excerpt:
Understanding your audience is essential. What do you know for sure about the audience you are writing for?
I know that my young readers are eager to experience another culture and language. They are also smart and ready to learn about challenging subjects that are part of our world’s history. Sometimes adults can underestimate what kids can understand, but I’m delighted to know younger readers and adult readers have been opened to experiencing the challenges and triumphs the twins face in Root Magic.
Tell us about your book.
My debut novel Root Magic is a Southern Gothic tale of Gullah-Geechee twins Jez and Jay living on one of South Carolina’s sea islands in 1963. On their eleventh birthday, their uncle teaches them rootwork, an African American folk magic practiced in their family for generations. This practice opens a new world for the twins, and they come face-to-face with evil, both human and supernatural. It’s a story of family, friendship, and ancestral ties woven in with real-life historical events and lots of magic. Teaching Guide for Educators
Go here to read Eden Royce’s full “Debut You” feature.
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