Destined to become a Florida classic, Cookie & Me is by the gifted Mary Jane Ryals, a Tallahassee writer, poet and teacher. Set in the Jim Crow 1960s in Tallhassee, it's the coming-of-age story of two enchanting but worrisome characters — Cookie, who is black, and the tomboyish narrator, Rayann, who is white — who become friends in secret because black/white friendships are verboten in the segregated South. Ryals' writing exemplifies the poet's ability to look trouble squarely in the face, but do so, in this case, with a musicality of language that is pure Old Florida, and an eye for images that are as magical as cloud-shapes. Brought out by Kitsune Books, one of Florida's "little" presses that is making a huge splash with its fiction and poetry. —Gianna Russo, founding editor, YellowJacket Press; instructor of English and writing, Saint Leo University
This article appears in Dec 15-21, 2011.