Pemba's Song

Title: Pemba's Song: A Ghost Story
Author: Marilyn Nelson
Pages: 109
Publisher: Scholastic, 2008
Genre: Middle Grades, Paranormal, History,
Etc: POC, Sunshine State

FIRST holla to POC on the cover.  Especially because it's a MIDDLE GRADES book man.  And I tell you what, teaching at a school where the minority are the white kids, it means a lot to my kids to see POC on the books that I bring in.  AND it's especially thumbs up in my book because THIS ONE isn't about gangs.* 

Pemba is in high school.  She's groovin' in the city, learning her step moves and listening to hip-hop when her mom decides that they need to move to someplace a bit more wholesome.  Like a small town in CT where she swears she's got to be the only black person.  Well, except for this goofy old man named Abraham.

As soon as she enters her new house though she begins to have this weird unexplainable moments of blackouts and headaches intermingled with what she concludes are odd daydreams.  Finally the frequency of them leads her to confide in Abraham and together they unravel a mystery, and murder, and a an untold slavery story.

I LOVED this little book and read it in one quick setting.  It's the perfect read for a kid who wants to get into a spooky spirit for Halloween.  In fact, it didn't make it a day on my desk before one of my students picked it up.  For any of you Read-A-Thoners who want to find a quick read, I would recommend this one for sure.

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* My students dig the gang books, mind you, but COME ON!!!  Every black or Hispanic person is not in a gang.