Kamau and ZuZu Find a Way

A stirring story of African diaspora, resourcefulness, and intergenerational love by National Book Critics Circle Award finalist and renowned poet Aracelis Girmay, and acclaimed illustrator Diana Ejaita.

One of Maria Popova's Marginalian Favorites of 2024!A Best Book of 2024, Center for the Study of Multicultural Literature!An Academy of American Poets Featured Fall Book for Young Readers!One of PW’s “12 Children’s Books by Black Authors to Read in 2024!”A Bookstagang Best of 2024 Picture Book Selection, for Best Illustration!

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.