5/5

TW: death of family member, grief

Hoodoo Hatcher is part of family in rural Alabama in the 1930's that practices hoodoo, thus his namesake. A man named 'Stranger' comes to town and soon we find out that Hoodoo is danger. We learn family secrets and learn how to heal generational curses and not to judge a book by its cover.

I'm not going to lie to you. I gave it a five star off the strength of actual Hoodoo guidance and the true horror atmosphere of this book. I think it is a great middle grade book to introduce kids, especially Black kids to the genre, to the time period, grief and to old school Southern culture. I thoroughly enjoyed this. I read it for Blackoweenathon 2022.

I will absolutely recommend going forward and read the rest of Ronald L. Smith's books