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A richly adorned seafloor in The Bahamas, a country in the Caribbean island region. Tracey grew up listening to stories anchored in Caribbean folklore · Cristina Mittermeier
“The ocean is ever-changing and yet predictably cyclical,” she says. “It represents adventure and familiarity, hope and incredible danger. If that isn't a description of human nature, I don't know what is.”
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For the second book in her series, “Rise of the Jumbies,” Tracey set the story deep in the ocean
“I couldn't really talk about Black people living on a Caribbean island without addressing how they had gotten there, and it seemed an obvious choice to lay this at the feet (or fins) of the mermaids,” she explains. “They were the perfect vessel for sharing that very painful history, because they could carry it beautifully.”
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Exploring a shipwreck on the bottom of the Caribbean Sea · Cristina Mittermeier
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The characters in Tracey’s book “Rise of the Jumbies” find an underwater shipwreck, where the mermaids with whom they are traveling recall their painful history as slaves · Cristina Mittermeier
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Tracey uses her mythological creatures as tools to explore the history of slavery in a way that is both understandable and meaningful to younger audiences · Cristina Mittermeier