Kamau and ZZ Find a Way

Kamau & ZuZu Find a Way is a stirring story of African diaspora, resourcefulness, and intergenerational love by National Book Critics Circle Award finalist andrenowned poet Aracelis Girmay, and acclaimed illustrator Diana Ejaita.

One day, young Kamau and his grandmother ZuZu wake up to find themselves on the moon. Kamau doesn’t remember Back Home, but Grandma ZuZu does, and she misses it terribly. Together, through cloth scraps and dance, letters and song, Kamau and ZuZu find a way to make a new life for themselves in this strange land: a new life which is not only rooted in the stories, memories, and traditions that ZuZu always carries with her, but which also lovingly reaches out across the vast expanse of space to connect and communicate with the family from which they’ve been separated.

Acclaimed poet Aracelis Girmay and illustrator Diana Ejaita together weave a powerful story inspired by the African diaspora, in which--despite the shock of being uprooted into this alien world, without being given any choice or explanation, and the sorrow that comes from the unfathomable distance separating them from their beloved community--Kamau and ZuZu find a way to live, as people do.

Aracelis Girmay is the mother of two amazing young people and the proud auntie of a small few others. She is also the author of the poetry collections The Black Maria, Kingdom Animalia, and Teeth, as well as a book of collages entitled Changing, Changing. For the past 20 years, she has taught reading and writing workshops in a variety of settings, including cultural centers, after school programs, elementary and high schools, and colleges. For several years she taught in Hampshire College’s School for Interdisciplinary Arts and is now the Assistant Chair of the Writing Program at Pratt. For her work she has received the Whiting Award, the Isabella Gardner Award, and the GLCA New Writers Award. Her books have also been named finalists for the Connecticut Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Hurston/Wright Award, and the Neustadt International Prize for Literature. Most recently, Girmay’s poetry and essays have been published in The Paris Review, Granta, Black Renaissance Noire, and PEN America, among other places. Girmay recently edited How to Carry Water: Selected Poems of Lucille Clifton and is currently editing an anthology by writers of color on experiences of/in relation to pregnancy. She is on the editorial board of the African Poetry Book Fund.

Diana Ejaita works as an illustrator and textile designer in Berlin. What sets her illustrations apart is a combination of dramatically contrasting areas of black and white with soft patterns and textures that create images that betray the strength of femininity. Born in Cremona, with Nigerian origins, her aesthetic pays homage to her lineage.