Voodoo Dreams
Jewell Parker Rhodes. Picador USA, $16 (448pp) ISBN 978-0-312-11931-7
NEA Fiction Award winner Rhodes's first novel brings to life a legendary 19th-century voodoo priestess. (Feb.)
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Reviewed on: 01/16/1995
Genre: Fiction
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- DOUGLASS' WOMENJewell Parker RhodesFrederick Douglass's love life was nearly as tumultuous as his political career—or so Rhodes (Voodoo Dreams; Magic Continue reading »
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- Ninth WardJewell Parker RhodesWith a mix of magical and gritty realism, Rhodes’s (Voodoo Dreams) first novel for young readers imagines Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent flooding through the eyes of resourceful 12-year-old Continue reading »
- The African American Guide to Writing & Publishing Non FictionJewell Parker RhodesJewell Parker Rhodes presents another, genre-specific guide for writers, The African American Guide to Writing and Publishing Nonfiction, and this one puts more emphasis on the process of writing Continue reading »
- Voodoo Season: A Marie Laveau MysteryJewell Parker RhodesMedicine and voodoo may seem at odds, but Marie Levant, first-year resident at New Orleans's Charity Hospital, discovers she has a gift for more than one kind of healing. Rhodes develops this theme Continue reading »
- Voodoo Dreams: A Novel of Marie LaveauJewell Parker RhodesNEA Fiction Award-winner Rhodes introduces a fearsome heroine and comments on the slave trade in an astute, evocative first novel based on the life of an actual voodoo priestess. From the age of 10, Continue reading »
- HurricaneJewell Parker RhodesIn the third volume of Rhodes's voodoo-inspired series (after 2009's Moon), an environmental disaster brews in New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina threatens. Dr. Marie Laveau, a descendant (and perhaps Continue reading »
- SugarJewell Parker RhodesIn 1870 Louisiana, five years after the Thirteenth Amendment outlawed slavery, Sugar is still bound to the crop whose name she shares: “I’m ten now. I’m not a slave anymore. I’m free. Except from Continue reading »
- Bayou MagicJewell Parker RhodesOne summer, nearly-10-year-old Maddy Johnson gets swept up in the mysteries of the Louisiana bayou. She’s the youngest of her five sisters and the last to spend a summer with her Grandmère Lavalier, Continue reading »
- Towers FallingJewell Parker RhodesWith the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approaching, Dèja’s fifth-grade teacher draws the students’ attention to the skyline outside their classroom window, pointing out where the towers once Continue reading »
- Ghost BoysJewell Parker RhodesSet in an impoverished Chicago neighborhood, this somber story blends history with current events. Jerome Rogers, a black 12-year-old, is playing outside with a toy gun when he is shot and killed by Continue reading »
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While Jewell Parker Rhodes has written six adult novels, a memoir, and two writing guides, and holds an endowed chair at the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Continue reading »![]()
PW spoke with Rhodes about her personal experiences of racism in America, and how writing her new novel, 'Ghost Boys,' was painful, but also cathartic. Continue reading »![]()
In Jewell Parker Rhodes’s 2016 novel ‘Towers Falling,’ 10-year-old Dèja learns about the 9/11 terrorist attack in school, not realizing its catastrophic impact on her own Continue reading »![]()
We asked the mother-daughter duo Jewell Parker Rhodes and Kelly McWilliams to discuss their first picture book collaboration, 'Soul Step,' illustrated by Briana Mukodiri Continue reading »
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