Stormwitch - Hardcover

Vaught, Susan

3.73

114 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1582349525 ISBN 13: 9781582349527

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens, 2005

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It is 1969, and Ruba has just moved to Mississippi from Haiti to live with her Grandmother Jones. This world is very different from her old life, where she spent days beachcombing with Ba, her maternal grandmother, and learning the lore of magic and history that she holds close. But magic isn't welcome in her new grandmother's house. Ruba struggles to understand her strange surroundings and the hate that comes at her from some of the white people in town. It isn't long before Ruba finds herself threatened by the KKK and drawn into the fight for civil rights. But a hurricane barreling toward the coast changes everything, bringing Ruba and her family a measure of justice and a new acceptance.

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About the Author:

Susan Vaught works with young people as a clinical psychologist. She has also been writing all her life. She and her large family live on a rugged, 45-acre mountainous farm in the Smoky Mountain foothills in Tennessee. This is her second book for young adults.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 6-10–This story offers a smooth blend of historical fact, suspense, and magic. In August 1969, Haitian-born, orphaned Ruba Cleo moves to Pass Christian, MS, to live with her grandmother. Despite the woman's stern Christian disapproval, Ruba clings to her belief in the ancestral lineage and power of the Dahomey Amazon women whose blood is in her veins. From her recently deceased Haitian grandmother, Ba, the 16-year-old learned chants, spells, and herbal potions that empower her to face destructive forces. When she encounters hostility and racism in the local community, her warrior psyche impedes her understanding of her grandmother's fears and struggles. However, as Ruba learns about Freedom Summer and the sacrifices of the civil rights workers, she begins to recognize and appreciate the warrior spirit in others. When Hurricane Camille slams into the Gulf Coast just as a white boy holds her and her family at gunpoint, Ruba musters her spiritual and emotional powers to save their lives and realizes that her training and perspective can be adapted to any time, situation, and place. Ruba's vivid descriptions and her reflective observations and lyrical letters to Ba belie early admission that she is learning and practicing English. Although the simultaneous timing of a gunpoint assault and the arrival of one of the century's worst hurricanes seems far-fetched, Ruba's tumultuous battle with the mystical stormwitch is compelling and liberating. Like her Mississippi cousins, readers will find Ruba an intriguing adolescent mix of cultural pride, emotional insecurity, and stubborn determination.–Gerry Larson, Durham School of the Arts, NC
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