Name: Pemba's Song
ISBN: 9780545020763

Tonya Hegamin

Marilyn Nelson

Writing in her journal helps keep Pemba's feelings in check as she deals with the loss of her father, the move from her Brooklyn neighborhood, and the strange appearance of an 18th-century slave who communicates with her through a mirror in her bedroom.

A Ghost Story

Pemba's Song

Kim Tyo-Dickerson

A poetic middle grade ghost story set in the early 2000s and the in-between world of 14 year-old Pemba. Pem loves her music and her journal where she writes hip-hop song entries about her life, and she is furious about moving from Brooklyn to a small town in Connecticut for her mom's new teaching job. Missing her new boyfriend Malik and best friend since forever Raysha, Pem isn't speaking to her mom, who needed to leave NYC to move on from Pem's father's death in Iraq four years before. Their new house is a historic house in the town and has creaking stairs and a sagging front porch. There's no cellphone coverage so Pem feels even worse and more isolated from her old life and worries her friends will look for new people to take her place. In her gloom and anxiety about moving, Pem finds herself exploring rooms in the house and finds an old mirror where she looks at her reflection and suddenly realizes the reflection starting back at her is someone else's face. 

Pem's strange experiences in the house continue and grow more intense. Meanwhile, there's an eccentric old man named Abraham that appears as they move in and offers to help Pem's mom with some projects, while inviting Pem to help him with some historical research at the local library about African American history in the town. Pem had worried that she was moving someplace without any other Black people, but with Abraham's help she learns that there were thousands of Black people in the North during the town's history, and that most were slaves. This fact shakes Pem's understanding of American history and drives her to learn more about everything that has been untaught in her school life, as well as trying to discover who had lived in their house before and why they are haunting her.

This novella was an intriguing and enjoyable read on a Halloween night. I wanted more development of everything in the story, Pem's experiences with the ghost at the center of the haunting, the unearthing of the town's African American history, Abraham's story, but altogether I found this a memorable read.

Pemba's Song A Ghost Story

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