LITERATURE TO LIFE: ZORA!

Performed: January 29 and May 4, 2004

Zora Neale Hurston was one of the most important and celebrated figures to emerge from the Harlem Renaissance. Outspoken, spirited and gifted, Ms. Hurston was the most prolific African-American woman writer of the 1930's. Adapted from the theatrical biography of her life by Laurence Holder, this performance brings to life her story. A production of the American Place Theatre.

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READING LIST:

Fiction

• Gary Paulsen, Nightjohn. New York: Delacorte Press, 1993.
  A free African American returns to the South to secretly teach slaves to read.
  8th grade.
• Pat McKissack, Mirandy and Brother Wind. New York: Knopf, 1992.
  A new African American folktale.
  1st grade.

Folktales

• Virginia Hamiliton, The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales. New York: Knopf, 1993.
  African American folktales around the theme of freedom.
  7th grade.
• Eric A. Kimmel, Anansi and the Moss-Covered Rock. New York: Holiday House, 1990.
  African trickster tale.
  2nd grade.
• John Steptoe, Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters. New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books, 1987.
  Re-telling of an African tale.
  2nd grade.
• And the Green Grass Grew All Around: Folk Poetry from Everyone. New York: HarperCollins Publishing, 1992.
  Collection of rhymes, riddles, poems and songs passed down through oral tradition.
  4th grade.
• Janet Stevens, Tops & Bottoms. San Francisco: Harcourt Children’s Books, 1995.
  Re-telling of a trickster tale with roots in both European and African folk tales.
  2nd grade.
• Verna Aardema, Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears. New York: Dial Books for Young Readers, 1992.
  African folktale.
  2nd grade.