Why did I love this book?
This is one of those books that kept me up way past my bedtime. It’s a delicious combination of folk magic, intrigue, and African-American culture in Depression-Era Alabama that grabbed me from page one. The narrator and hero, Hoodoo Hatcher, is one of my all-time favorite middle-grade protagonists, and Smith’s amazingly descriptive writing definitely transported me through time and space to a place I never wanted to leave.
3 authors picked Hoodoo as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
Twelve year old Hoodoo Hatcher was born into a family with a rich tradition of practicing folk magic - hoodoo, as most people call it. But even though his name is Hoodoo, he can't seem to cast a simple spell. Then a mysterious man called the Stranger comes to town, and Hoodoo starts dreaming of the dead rising from their graves. Even worse, he soon learns the Stranger is looking for a boy. Not just any boy. A boy named Hoodoo. The entire town is at risk from the Stranger's black magic, and only Hoodoo can defeat him. He'll just…