Stars: ***
This book was read for the Zora Neale Hurston Challenge.
“During her travels in the Gulf States in the 1930’s, Zora Neale Hurston recorded stories told by the people she met, to preserve their rich oral legacy. The Six Fools is one of the stories collected in Every Tongue Got to Confess, her third volume of folklore. It has been masterfully adapted for children by National Book Award winner Joyce Carol Thomas.”
The six fools is the story of a man who is about to marry a woman. While the family sits down to discuss matters, the woman is sent to go get cider from the basement. While waiting for the cider to fill the pitcher, she daydreams about what to name her future child. Soon the cider is pouring all over the floor. Each family member in turn goes down to see what’s taking so long and when he or she finds out the woman is thinking up baby names, they sit and think too. Finally the man comes down to find the whole family thinking while knee deep in cider and proclaims them fools. He says he is going traveling for a year and if he finds three fools as big as the family, then he’ll come back and get married. At the end of the year he has found three more fools and so comes back and gets married.
Although odd, I did like this story although I’d be interested in if preschoolers seem to like it.
About Kathleen
