For the first time, Ella sees what life outside of segregation is like, and begins to dream of a very different future.īut her happiness is shattered when she returns home to the news that her classmate has been arrested for the murder of two white girls – and nothing will ever be the same again.Ī beautifully written and deeply moving story about finding and fighting for your place in the world. So when an invitation arrives to come to Boston for a visit Ella is ecstatic – and the trip proves life-changing in more ways than one. The deep racial tension that simmers beneath their town’s peaceful facade never quite goes away, and Ella misses her mama – a beautiful jazz singer, who lives in Boston.

It’s 1944, and in a small, Southern, segregated town, eleven-year-old Ella spends her summers running wild with her cousins and friends. Folks didn’t wait for church to dress in their fancy clothes. Up there, colored folks could go anywhere they wanted. You can pick it up wherever books are sold on March 5, 2019.Boston was nothing like South Carolina.

You’ll have to wait until next year to add How High The Moon to your bookshelf. Queen Latifah and Chris Rock have also narrated stories for the animated series. The company’s first animated feature was The Journey of Henry ‘Box’ Brown, narrated by Alfre Woodard.

It’s not Parsons first foray into creating content she deeply cares about that also celebrates and illuminates Black narratives.Īfter her turn on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Parsons went on to found and produce Sweet Blackberry, an award-winning series of animated children’s films about little-known Black heroes. A stirring, emotionally resonant debut, How High the Moon opens a fresh and sensitive window on a terrifying time, even as it introduces us to a lovable new heroine - Tony Abbott, author of Firegirl and The Great Jeff A tender and compelling story about loving and belonging. I’m grateful to Little, Brown and thrilled to be able to share How High the Moon with readers.” “Delving deeper into a time and place that I’d heard so much about but never experienced was very exciting to me. “The stories of my mother’s childhood were so uniquely different from my own that I often found myself wondering what it would be like to grow up in the Jim Crow south,” Parsons said in a statement. Parsons tells ESSENCE exclusively that How High the Moon was inspired from her mother’s real-life experience of growing up in the south.

How High the Moon by Karyn Parsons