"Zora and Me," by Victoria Bond and T. R. Simon (Candlewick Press, 192 pp., ages 10-12)
The protagonist of this evocative, coming-of-age story set in a small, all-black Florida town is a fictionalized version of author Zora Neale Hurston. Young Zora loves to tell stories, Carrie, her best friend and the novel's narrator explains, and the one she spins about the mythical gator-man she says she's seen is no exception. But when two men turn up dead, Zora's storytelling is suddenly on a collision course with an urgent need for real answers.
