Cookie & Me

by Mary Jane Ryals

With an ear for regional voices as pitch perfect as a tuning fork, Mary Jane Ryals brings to life her beloved South during the tumultuous days of the early civil rights movement. Set in Tallahassee, Florida, Cookie & Me tells the story of Rayann, who is white and somewhat privileged, and Cookie, who is black and living a marginalized life that Rayann never realized existed until one life-changing summer. Cookie and Me is fresh and poignant, a beautifully-written story about two young girls, one black, one white, and how they get caught up in an explosive real-life episode during the Civil Rights Movement. Mary Jane Ryals writes like a sassy hybrid of Eudora Welty and Lee Smith. Rayann Woods, her heroine, is as bitingly funny as Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird and as sharply honest as Huck Finn. Ryals knows her North Florida backwoods, her debutantes, her good ole boys and her Jim Crow history. This novel is at once charming and unsparing, hilarious and profound. I hope this isn't the last we hear from Rayann. She's my kind of girl. -Diane (D. K.) Roberts, Dream State; The Myth of Aunt Jemima; Between Two Rivers Cookie & Me is every bit as evocative of race relations in the South as Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. Mary Jane Ryals' Tallahassee, Florida is a kissing cousin of Lee's Maycomb, Alabama. The story is set in the turbulent sixties and features two main characters who struggle across racial lines to form a friendship that sustains them both. The writing is so visceral, you can almost hear Aretha, feel the humidity and taste the mulberries. I love this book. -Lu Vickers, Breathing Underwater; Weeki City of Mermaids

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction

330 pages, Paperback

First published September 5, 2010

About the author

Mary Jane Ryals' poetry is delicious, sensory, rapturous, riviting ... a feast for the senses. An award-winning author of nonfiction, poetry, and short stories; editor at the Apalachee Review literary magazine; and research associate at Florida State University's College of Business, Mary Jane Ryals has added a new title to her portfolio: 2008-2010 Big Bend Poet Laureate.

She is also the 2006 winner of the Second Annual Yellow Jacket Press Chapbook Contest for Florida Poets. Her short story collection, A Messy Job I Never Did See a Girl Do, is available from Livingston Press, and her nonfiction book, Getting into the Intercultural Groove: Intercultural Communication for Everyone, was released in 2006 from Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company.

Reviews

[Kim Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 rounded up, because, why isn't this book read more! It's got everything I like. Important and relevant topic, well paced, intriguing characters

[Holly (Hyung Hee) Chun · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this book mainly as a book assignment, but I fell in love with Mary Jane Ryals' writing - it is easy to read and comprehend while at the same time enticing and mind grabbing. She is able to convey the hopelessness that is amongst the African American community as they are harshly punished without committing crimes or disturbing peace. She makes it so segregation is not a foreign word to readers and even though they have never physically lived through it, they gain an understanding of what it is. Her ability to pay attention to details in imagery and creating a realistic setting for readers makes it impossible for anyone to reject the facts that African Americans in the 1960s faced horrifying struggles. Ryals makes it evident that unequal and unethical treatment based solely off skin tone is not viable and never should be and teaches many great life lessons.

[Kris Odahowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ryals brings the reader back to a the mid-sixties Tallahassee where you could have a rural upbringing but be close enough to walk to the downtown Capital City. Teen featured in this book comes from a dysfunctional family, finding solace in the woods and unlikely friend the story is about coming of age. With the backdrop of the American Civil Rights movement the story is moved along by a self destructing family life and a teen girls burgeoning young adulthood. Title from the Just Read Florida Summer 2014 Reading List.

[retronerd Steinkuehler · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is NOT To Kill a Mockingbird quality. Good writing but story and characters did not grab me in the least. A major disappointment.

[FSU Alumni]

Mary Jane Ryals (B.A. '80, M.A. '89, Ph.D. '94)

[Kate Melton · Rating 5 out of 5]

The fact that it's written from a lady in my home town makes it great. Honestly, though, it's a beautiful story about finding friendship even when people around you are against it. I greatly enjoyed it and I think it sends a good message about pushing past the negative people and trusting who you care about.