About The Book... “Who’s Watchin’ Me? Season One”
Who’s Watchin’ Me… is a novella filled with poetic storytelling, a writing style that I refer to as “Stoetry.” This stoetry captures various types of abuse and hardship that the main character, a little girl named Annie, experiences while in the care of various adults during different phases of her life.
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Annie is a 4 ½ years old African-American girl, who has been displaced from her family on the East Coast when she and her mother move 3,000 miles to Portland, Oregon. Her mother, Queenie Lou moves to Portland to escape the perils of her broken relationship with Annie’s father and to avoid going back to the Jim Crow South of Jackson, Mississippi. Queenie Lou’s closest relative living up north is her big brother, Charles. Annie tells her story which includes many hard-life encounters wrapped in love, curiosity and the imagination of a child.
This story reveals how Annie experiences several types of abuse, including domestic violence, sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse and bullying and how those traumatic experiences were woven into her life.
In addition, we hear the voice of Annalise who is Annie as an adult reflecting on her life as a grown woman. Annalise uses the flow of rhyme, an art that she inherited from her mother, to share her perspective through a lens of faith, hope and love which enabled her to overcome the many challenges of being abused. Annalise’s mantra is that without God, she never would have made it through so many hard trials.
The primary theme explored by the child throughout this stoetry is the question, “Who’s Watchin’ Me?” A question arising from the confusion stemming from a child who is left in the care of various people, some of whom end up being anything but safe. Annie soon discovers that bad things often happen to her when grown-ups aren’t watching and sometimes, even when they are.
Annie also learns that sometimes abuse happens by trusted and loving adults, both intentionally and unintentionally. Fortunately, as the story unfolds and as Annie fuses into Annalise, she learns that no matter how bad her circumstances are and were, that none of it was her fault, that God is always watching her and that Divine Love and Light is always with her.
Book Review: “I so enjoyed the Afrocentric characters, especially, Annie’s Mama and her no-nonsense approach. The author majestically weaves poetry throughout while telling a story; infusing the two styles and coining the term “Stoetry.”
-Sherrena (Torrence) Saint Preux