Black Girl Magic for the Grieving Heart
“Memory…is a powerful force in the way a society evolves.” - Bryan Stevenson.
A Comb of Wishes* is a story about friendship, grief, and love. This debut book is a middle-grade fantasy with magic, folklore, and Caribbean culture. Kela finds a beautiful artifact, a comb, in a sea cave (while trespassing), and the owner of this comb, who happens to be a mermaid, wants it back.
We met Kela alone at the beach. Her happy place. Kela no longer spends time with her best friend, Lissy, or goes diving with her Dad because her world hasn’t been the same since her mother passed away.
However, Kela still enjoys collecting sea glass to create one-of-a-kind jewelry. Our girl is serving Black girl entrepreneurship and creativity. Her mother said sea glass was mermaid tears.
The island is full of storytellers telling similar stories passed down from generation to generation. Some of these stories are folklore, but Kela finds herself face-to-face with Ophidia, a mermaid!
Our lives are full of choices, and Kela has a big decision to make. Ophidia agrees to let her make ONE wish in exchange for the comb. There’s only one thing she wants most in the world. Will she choose it despite the possible consequences?
One of my favorite parts of the book involves Kela and her best friend going to the Museum and Historical Society to look at Oral History records of interviews her mother collected. It reminds me of going to the Library of Congress in college and later learning about the online archives, listening to interviews with those who lived through slavery.
The importance of preserving history is very evident today. For example, the National Museum of African American History and Culture currently seeks volunteers to help transcribe documents. These collections represent our connection to the past. The reader will learn more about the comb Kela discovered, and her choices will affect how even the sea woman sees it.
This middle-grade book gives us a glimpse into the perspective of a child dealing with the loss of a parent. Lisa Stringfellow wrote this book for her younger self. She desired to see more characters represented in the fantasy who looked like her. She also wrote it in hopes of bringing comfort to so many who’ve experienced loss.
I couldn’t put this book down. It reminded me of how I felt reading mystery books like Nancy Drew. I had that same excitement and curiosity as I kept wanting to know what happened next.
*Disclaimer: This book was provided to me for free in exchange for an honest review.
