Hoodoo

"The horror element is just as vividly drawn, with the terrifying Stranger rivaling Barraclough’s Long Lankinin his creepiness. The straightforward plot makes this accessible to younger readers, and the atmospheric setting will certainly leave them with a chill." —The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books "The action of the novel moves swiftly, and readers should be easily drawn into its dark, supernatural ambience." —Publishers Weekly “What a splendid novel. Reader, be prepared to have your foundations shaken: this is a world that is deeper, more wondrous, more spiritually charged than you may have ever imagined.” —Gary D. Schmidt, two-time Newbery Honor medalist and author of The Wednesday Wars   “Oh, wow! Hoodoo may just be the perfect book for a rainy day. Find a dog that will sit with you . . . and read on to your heart’s content. What a fun discovery!” —Nikki Giovanni, poet and award-winning author of Rosa “I loved this book. Told by a narrator you won’t soon forget, it is filled with myth and legend, danger and bravery. Hoodoo is pure folk magic, if you didn’t know.”  —Keith Donohue,New York Times best-selling author of The Stolen Child "The authenticity of Hoodoo's voice and this distinctive mashup of genres make Smith one to watch. Seekers of the scary and "something different" need look no further." *—Kirkus "The chilling supernatural Southern Gothic plot action is enhanced by atmospheric description of rural life in Depression-era Alabama...Readers will particularly enjoy Hoodoo's authentic and engaging narrative voice." —School Library Journal* "Hoodoo's first-person narrative, which flows beautifully, has an appealing and natural cadence...Through his protagonist, Smith demonstrates an eye for detail and a knack for evocative imagery as well as for telling a riveting story with a dollop of southern gothic appeal." —Booklist "Filled with folk and religious symbols, this creepy Southern Gothic ghost story is steeped in time and place. Hoodoo's earnest first-person narrative reveals a believable innocent who can 'cause deeds great and powerful.'" —Horn Book Magazine

Autorentext

Ronald L. Smith is the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award–winning author of several acclaimed novels for young readers, including Hoodoo, The Owls Have Come to Take Us Away, Gloom Town, Where the Black Flowers Bloom, *and the Black Panther: The Young Prince series. *He lives in Baltimore, Maryland. To learn more, visit strangeblackflowers.com.

Klappentext

Twelve-year-old Hoodoo Hatcher was born into a family with a rich tradition of practicing folk magic: hoodoo, as most people call it. But even though his name is Hoodoo, he can't seem to cast a simple spell. Then a mysterious man called the Stranger comes to town, and Hoodoo starts dreaming of the dead rising from their graves. Even worse, he soon learns the Stranger is looking for a boy. Not just any boy. A boy named Hoodoo. The entire town is at risk from the Stranger's black magic, and only Hoodoo can defeat him. He'll just need to learn how to conjure first. Set amid the swamps, red soil, and sweltering heat of small town Alabama in the 1930s, Hoodoo is infused with a big dose of creepiness leavened with gentle humor.

Leseprobe
ONE
The Stranger
 
When I got born, Mama Frances took one look at me and said, “That child is marked. He got hoodoo in him.”
 
And that’s how I got my name.
 
Hoodoo.
 
Hoodoo Hatcher.
 
She was talking about the red smudge under my left eye, shaped just like a heart. Not like a real heart I saw in a book one time, with blood pumping through it and all kinds of other stuff, but a heart somebody would carve in a tree with two names inside it.
 
Everybody said my birthmark was some kind of sign, but what it meant, nobody knew. I’ll tell you one thing, though. People knew I was different as soon as they looked at me.
 
Mama Frances was my grandmama and she was the one who raised me. My real mama died when I was born. My daddy died when I was five years old. I didn’t know what happened to him, but Mama Frances said he ran off and came to a bad end. Supposedly he went and put a curse on a man in Tuscaloosa County, but I didn’t believe that. I didn’t think I’d ever know the real truth.
 
The sun was just starting to set and I needed to get back home. I’d been collecting stuff in the woods all day and my stomach was rumbling. I headed down the path, kicking up dirt clods along the way. Some bottle flies buzzed around my head, and I had to run a little bit to get them off. I called them greenies because I saw a dead one on the porch one time and its body was all green and shiny, like a piece of colored glass.
 
Something good-smelling came drifting through the woods. Mama Frances must’ve been cooking up some Hoppin’ John. Hoppin’ John is black-eyed peas and rice, if you didn’t know. She made it all the time and I loved it.
 
Back home, I pulled the door shut and put my pillowcase bag on the kitchen table. It was full of rocks, pecans, some old bottle caps, a broken piece of chain, flattened pennies from the railroad tracks, and the skull of a baby bird I’d found under a tree.
 
Mama Frances eyed the bag on the table. “You know that don’t belong there, child.” She stood over the old stove, her smooth forehead dotted with beads of sweat. It was hot out, the middle of June, and even hotter in our house. I picked up the bag and set it on a chair.
 
“Not there either, Hoodoo. Upstairs. In your room.”
 
Not everybody had an upstairs in their house. Most folks had one big room with a coal stove and an outhouse in the back. An outhouse is where people go to do their business, if you didn’t know.
 
The reason we had an upstairs was because my granddaddy used to live here with Mama Frances, and she’d wanted a whole bunch of children. His name was Emanuel Hatcher. People had to call him by his first and last name or he wouldn’t answer. He’d just sit there and pretend like he didn’t hear you. I called him Pa Manuel, though, and he seemed okay with that. He didn’t live with Mama Frances anymore because she said he was ornery as a yellow dog, so he moved out. I didn’t see how somebody could have enough money to buy two houses but I guessed he did.
 
Mama Frances never did get all those children. The only child they’d had was my daddy, Curtis Hatcher. That made them my grandparents on my dead daddy’s side. I was an only child too. Mama Frances said my real mama died because she didn’t eat enough white clay when I was in her belly. I asked her why somebody would eat white clay, and she said it helped ladies have babies. That just sounded plain crazy to me.
 
I grabbed my bag and headed up the steps, keeping my eyes right in front of me. I didn’t want to look at the picture of my family on the wall because it gave me the shivers. The reason it gave me the shivers was because when I looked at it, my great-aunt Eve stared at me with eyes that blazed like fire. Sometimes I thought I saw her lips move, like she was trying to talk to me. The picture was old and wrinkly and the wooden frame around it was falling apart. There was some fancy handwriting on the b…