Dayshaun’s Gift

Last night I wrote an afterword for Dayshaun’s Gift, but this morning I’m thinking it would make a better blog post so I’m pasting it in here. We have a draft cover; I’m not crazy about the color scheme, so we’re going to play around with that, but the book is just about ready to go! I expect to release it on the 15th.

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My grandparents were very proud of their gardens. My father’s parents dug up their front yard so that they’d have more room for growing tomatoes, and they made cider out of the apples that fell from the tree in their backyard. My mother’s parents grew more flowers than I could name as a child, and I still think of my grandmother whenever I see an aster. My mother inherited her parents’ love of flowers, and my father dug up our backyard to plant his own vegetable garden. I grew up in a miniature Eden: there were plum and apple trees, rhubarb and raspberries, tiger lilies and snapdragons, Swiss chard and carrots, and—of course—tomatoes!

Now that I am an adult and a naturalized New Yorker, I realize that though I love city life, I come from a long line of farmers. My mother’s African American ancestors bought their freedom and migrated to Canada sometime before 1820; my great-great-grandfather acquired a farm that stayed in the family for generations. My Caribbean father also came from a family that lived off the land. If I go back far enough on either side of my family, I find ancestors who were forced to work the land as slaves but then chose to continue farming once they were free.

I’m not a gardener but I spend a lot of time in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and Prospect Park; nature nourishes the soul and provides endless inspiration for a writer like me. But when I left Canada and moved to Brooklyn twenty years ago, I fell in love with the dense urban blocks lined with stately brownstones. Brooklyn felt very modern but there was still clear evidence of its history—something I never found in suburban Toronto. I could walk the streets of Brooklyn and pass churches that had helped fugitive slaves to reach freedom, and there were trees that seemed to be more than a hundred years old. Brooklyn was full of untold stories, and as a storyteller I immediately felt at home.

While teaching in an afterschool program in Bed-Stuy in 1998, I took a group of 8^th graders to the Brooklyn Historical Society where we learned about Maritcha Lyons. Her memoir contained vivid descriptions of the NYC Draft Riots of 1863, and her account of northern mob violence stayed with me for several years until I wrote my first young adult novel, A Wish After Midnight. Maritcha was a teenager when she survived the riots, and my novel is about a contemporary African American teen who opens a portal in the botanic garden and lands in the free Black community of Weeksville just before the Emancipation Proclamation takes effect on January 1, 1863. Seven months later, Genna has to run for her life as the draft riots spread from Manhattan to Brooklyn.

Slavery ended in 1827 in New York State, so by the time Black families started settling in Weeksville, they were (mostly) free to choose how they wanted to live their lives. I wrote Dayshaun’s Gift after spending two months as the inaugural writer-in-residence at Weeksville Heritage Center during the spring of 2015. I had just completed a picture book about Weeksville and I felt that older kids might appreciate a longer story that blends magic and history. But how could I write about a race riot where whites killed African Americans without terrifying my young readers?

I decided to write around the riots. Dayshaun is a kid from Brooklyn who loves to blast zombies, but his mom wants him to take an interest in gardening. Because his parents are divorced, Dayshaun spends alternate weekends with his dad who has urged his son to focus on moving forward. But Dayshuan goes back in time when he puts on his grandfather’s grubby old hat; in 1863 he meets two kids from Weeksville, Susan and Teddy, and Dayshaun joins them in helping the survivors of the riots who are camped out in the woods. So Dayshaun sees the terrible consequences of the riots, but the focus is on his ability to act using the knowledge he has gained in the 21st century. He has learned about 9/11 in school and recognizes the same traumatized look on the faces of the survivors. He also stands up for Susan when Teddy tells her she can’t be a doctor because she’s a girl. Susan Smith (right) grew up to become the first African American woman doctor in New York State, and her commitment to serving her community is shown in the novel. The story also touches on the uprisings in Ferguson and Baltimore, and the problem of “food deserts” in many low-income communities.

I read the story over last week and worried that kids might find it boring or preachy. But my trusted friend Kate, who’s a writer and mother of two avid readers, sent me her thoughts about the book this morning and I was so relieved:

I read Dayshaun’s Gift last night. I probably sound like a broken record, but I think it is a great story. It flows well – you are so good at narrative flow. I did not find any typos or things I would change…Love the way you work in so many interesting pieces of history. It’s educational, but in a quiet, interesting and fun way. Your questions for discussion at the end are excellent too. Nice, realistic relationships in the book, great juxtaposing of past and present issues. You address social issues, but also personal ones that kids may struggle with (divorce, friendships, belonging). Kids are really drawn to the comic book illustrations… I think that was a good call to draw in readers.

I’m aiming for a 9/15 release date and will send out another newsletter, so stay tuned! And if you’d like a review copy, just let me know.

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