ABOUT ZORA’S GARDEN
Zora’s Garden is especially meaningful to me because it reflects the spirit of my great-great aunt, Zora Neale Hurston, celebrating growth, curiosity, and resilience. Through this lovely story of Zora’s quiet care for her garden, it feels like a personal legacy—honoring family, heritage, and the beauty of nurturing something God’s way, with love and patience.
—Halima Hurston Wilson, Hurston Descendent
ABOUT THE BOOK
In the all-Black town of Eatonville, Florida, a young girl named Zora discovers that stories, like gardens, are living things.
Zora’s Garden invites readers into a sunlit world where orange trees hum with bees, flowers bloom in careful rows, and imagination is treated as sacred work. Under the loving guidance of her mother, Lucy Potts Hurston, Zora learns that storytelling is not something you wait to be given. It is something you grow. Together, mother and daughter tend the garden while Lucy shares a timeless truth. Every good story begins with a seed, needs care to take root, and requires courage and imagination to flourish.
Blending gentle magic with historical truth, Zora’s Garden introduces children to the early life and creative spirit of the real Zora Neale Hurston, novelist, folklorist, anthropologist, and one of the most important American writers of the twentieth century. Through imaginative scenes inspired by Hurston’s childhood, readers witness how Zora’s love of language, performance, and observation was nurtured at home long before her words reached the world.
This story does not shy away from tenderness or loss. When Lucy’s presence is no longer physically felt, Zora must learn how memory, love, and stories themselves can become a form of care, keeping gardens alive even through grief. In doing so, the book honors the profound role Lucy Potts Hurston played in shaping her daughter’s confidence, voice, and sense of possibility.
Written by Zora Neale Hurston scholar Rae Chesny, Zora’s Garden is a heartfelt blend of fact and fiction, grounded in extensive research and archival study while crafted specifically for young readers and the adults who read with them. The book celebrates Black girlhood, creative inheritance, and the idea that imagination is both a gift and a responsibility.
Perfect for classrooms, families, libraries, and community spaces, Zora’s Garden encourages children to
See their ideas as valuable
Understand storytelling as a living tradition
Recognize the power of care, memory, and creativity
Learn about the real Zora Neale Hurston in an age-appropriate and meaningful way
At its core, Zora’s Garden is an invitation to listen closely, to tend what has been planted in you, and to grow stories that will one day feed others.
Notes for Grown Ups
Content: This book gently references the death of a parent, drawn from the real life of Zora Neale Hurston. The moment is handled with care and tenderness, but it may bring up questions or feelings for some children. We encourage adults to read alongside children and create space for conversation, reflection, or comfort as needed.
Language: Zora Neale Hurston famously wrote in dialect and vernacular to preserve the voices of everyday people, especially those of the African American South. Rather than “correct” language, she honored it.
This book follows that tradition. The language choices are purposeful and rooted in cultural respect. We encourage readers to approach the text with curiosity and openness, and to celebrate the many ways language carries identity, history, and joy.
Historic Terms: Some historical documents use language that is outdated or no longer appropriate today. While learning about Zora Neale Hurston’s life and work, you may encounter older terms used during her lifetime. We do not use those terms today, but we acknowledge them as part of the historical record while centering respect, dignity, and care.
“Zora’s Garden was written to preserve and teach about the incomparable legacy of Zora Neale Hurston. The story features rich dialects to honor Zora’s fight for linguistic justice. Each time it is read, I pray that Southern Black ancestors are heard by their generations of descendants. Zora’s Garden is my work of collecting Zora for our children, bone by bone. I hope that children reading the story find something familiar and comforting that makes them feel connected to their roots. That is the best way to honor Zora.”
— Rae Chesny, Author of Zora’s Garden
ZORA’S GARDEN TESTIMONIALS
RAE’S MISSION
Rae Chesny is on a mission to expand the minds and imaginations of children through storytelling that weaves past, present, and future while honoring historic figures like Zora Neale Hurston.
Zora’s Garden Book Drive
The Zora’s Garden Book Drive extends the story beyond individual homes and into shared learning spaces where children can read, imagine, and grow together. Through community donations and sponsorship support, copies of Zora’s Garden are placed into schools, organizations, and community spaces across the country, creating collective storytelling experiences rooted in care, imagination, and joy.
Each donated book is treated as a Bookseed, planted in a learning space known as a Garden Bed. Once books arrive, these spaces are invited to schedule a virtual author visit, bringing the story to life and connecting children to the literary legacy of Zora Neale Hurston through shared reading and storytelling.
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