MISSY VIOLET & ME

Hathaway's debut book takes its inspiration from the experiences of the author's grandmother, who worked as a midwife in the rural south during the 1930s. Written in the ingenuous voice of an 11-year-old African-American girl, the novel chronicles her summer apprenticeship to Missy Violet, a charismatic midwife who was born into slavery. Though excited about the prospect of helping the woman with her "baby catchin'," Viney has a lot to learn. For instance, she assumes that the woman transports babies to various houses in her big black bag after finding them "inside tree stumps or cabbage patches." Hathaway's anecdotal narrative includes tangential tales about other local personalities, but readers may find these less involving than the episodes focusing on the narrator's adventures with Missy Violet—including her lessons on healing herbs and other remedies ("Missy Violet's kitchen always smelled like a holiday" from the baked goods she delivered to shut-ins)—and with Viney's rambunctious cousin Charles. The author includes some intriguing historical nuggets, such as Missy Violet's description of witnessing, at age seven, a Yankee soldier presenting to the newly freed captives a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation ("Never heard such shoutin' and singin' and ringin' of the cow bells in all my born days as I heard on that day"). Unspooled as leisurely as a summer afternoon spent on the front porch, this appealingly nostalgic tale conveys the tenor of the time as well as the affable narrator's growth during one momentous summer. Ages 7-10. (May)