But she couldn’t do anything about her own cancer, unfortunately, and at the time the book takes place, she’s bedridden and in terrible pain, dying from the disease. Mam was a healer, using plant-based remedies to help the poor town all throughout her life. To add a layer to all of this, Mam and Pop have their own stories to tell. Leonie, her friend from work, Misty, Jojo, and Kayla load up in her old car and make the road trip up north to the prison, and not a thing goes right the entire day. And he’s getting released from Parchman several days later. Leonie’s family is poor and black, living in southern Mississippi, near the gulf coast, and Jojo’s father, Michael, is white and from the same small town.

Leonie also technically lives there, but she’s gone so often that Jojo doesn’t even call her Mom or Mama – he calls her Leonie. His mother, Leonie, is neglectful, a drug addict and incredibly self-centered woman, and he and his little sister, Kayla, live with their mother’s parents, Pop and Mam. In Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jojo turns 13 and finds out his father is getting released from prison. I guess I have to just start talking about it, huh? Rest in power, King, and Wakanda forever. And it was incredibly powerful, especially in light of the death of beloved actor Chadwick Boseman, whose turn as Black Panther, Jackie Robinson, James Brown, and Thurgood Marshall were groundbreaking and nuanced and just POWERFUL. I finished it YESTERDAY but I knew that if I waited to review it, it would lose some of its power for me.

I am… going to potentially have some trouble really putting this book into words.

Sing unburied sing review