ONCE IN A BLUE MOON

After Ma nearly drowns one fateful night, a North Carolina boy doesn’t go outside.

Everything 11-year-old James Henry needs to do, including taking imaginary trips into the night skies with twin sister Hattie, he can do at home. He endures the stares and gossip of folks as they pass his house. Nobody but he knows what happened that night, but as long as he has the safety of home, as long as nobody touches him, and as long as he can avoid his own guilt, he’s fine. But Hattie is done with James Henry’s being “just fine.” A rare blue moon is coming, and she thinks that it’s time for him to go out and meet it. Everyone knows that things can change and worlds can shift under the blue moon. Using short poems, the tale takes readers on a soul-twisting journey once James Henry, a Black boy living during Jim Crow, leaves home with his sister and her friend Lottie Jean. Together they face off against racists and bullies. Readers also get joyous representations of Black children thriving in the outdoors: swimming, eating well, and using knowledge passed down to them to move forward. This is when these characters start to take full form, but it’s interrupted by the mystery of what really happened to James Henry’s Ma, something that haunts the storyline in confusing and distracting ways.

The theme of recovery after deep trauma shines brightly.