Zeely represents the encounter that helps a young girl find an empowering sense of self-acceptance. Zeely, a young African woman living with her father in the small Southern town where Elizabeth Perry and her younger brother John are spending the summer with their Uncle Ross. Elizabeth is a girl on the verge of self-discovery, impatient to be grown and wise, who determines that she and her brother must spend the summer with new identities, Geeder and Toeboy. Late one night, peering through the bushes at the edge of their uncle's yard, they see a tall figure in flowing white cloth, seemingly headless and armless, floating down the path... a night traveler! Her appearance and manners are so out of place to Geeder that she can't decide if she is a spirit to be feared or an African queen to be worshipped. Pursuing her fantasy to find the truth, in the end, Geeder finds her analogy to be surprisingly accurate: Zeely is a queen, "When you think how Miss Zeely IS ....It's what's inside you when you dare swim in a dark lake with nobody to help if something should happen. Or, when you walk down a dark road way late at night, night after night." I read this book shortly after it was published in 1967, and it has been a part of my psyche ever since, but only recently did I recognize it's purpose as the expression of the beneficial collision of inner and outer perceptions. This was the story of a little girl's princess fantasy, but one where the hapless, passive and dependent discovers she can be resourceful, resilient and active. This will always be a favorite book of mine. ( )

Virginia Hamilton is always able to draw from personal experiences to add more to her books. Hamilton is able to write a wonderful story drawing from her childhood in the book Zeely. Zeely is about a liitle girl who is orphaned and goes to live with family members. Zeely has to deal with the pain of losing her parents and faces masny other obstacles but is able to overcome them because of her great ability to persevere. Info on the author and her books can be found at bookrags.com ( )

Zeely is a book about an African girl who's parents die, and has to move in with her uncle. The moral that can be learned from this story that to keep things at a realistic reach. Another moral is that if you have faith in yourself and do things in a manner in which you can be proud of and you can make whatever you want out of yourself. I would consider having this in my class as supplemental reading, but it may be over my spe student's reading level.

This seems like it would be a pretty good book for children. I started reading it and it wasn't interesting me, so I stopped after 37 pages. ( )