Marcella White Campbell | Maya's Journey
Maya loves to make up stories—big, bright, and full of imagination. But when her teacher asks for a true family story, Maya is stumped. What story could she tell?
Maya's parents tell her the stories of two amazing women: Essie, who crossed an ocean alone to escape danger in Romania, and Martha, who rode across the American South in a Jim Crow train car to seek fairness and freedom.
As Maya follows their journeys, full of bravery, laughter, and hope, she discovers a powerful truth: her family’s story is also her own.
Essie leaves her home in Romania for safety. She crosses the Atlantic to find a new home in New York. No matter what, Essie always has courage, generosity, and her sense of humor.
Meet Essie and Martha
Martha Jean boards a train from Arkansas to San Francisco to seek fairness and freedom. Through her adventures, she shows courage, kindness, and creativity.
Praise for Maya's Journey
“The meaningful, thoughtful prose and gorgeous illustrations… show the beauty of what it means to be Jewish today.”
— The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle
About Maya's Journey
Maya’s Journey was inspired by the stories I told my children when they were young. My children are Black and Jewish, and I raised them to believe that they could be both—that the Black American and Jewish American stories were not in opposition, but part of a shared history of migration, courage, and survival. I wanted them to understand that the Ashkenazi-Jewish and African-American families that came together to form their larger family are made up of people who were intelligent and brave and resourceful—and that some of them had to leave home, even though they didn’t want to. In different times and under different pressures, their ancestors left what they knew to seek safety, opportunity, and freedom. No matter what their journeys were, those ancestors would have seen my children as part of an ongoing story—and as a kind of happy ending. The freedoms they sought are the freedoms my (now grown-up!) children are living today.
Meet the Author
Marcella White Campbell
Marcella White Campbell is a writer, educator and cultural historian. A third-generation San Francisco native, she traces Black and Jewish family stories in her debut picture book Maya’s Journey: A Story of Two Great-Grandmothers. Her award-winning essays have appeared in Lilith Magazine, Kveller, and The Forward, and she directs the Pomegranate Writing Fellowship for Jewish women writers of color. Marcella facilitates writing workshops that help people claim their voices and tell the stories only they can tell. Her own creativity is fueled by history, soul music, sweaters in every color, and the city where she and her husband raised their now-grown children. She believes that joy is part of resilience, and that stories are bridges that invite us to know ourselves and one another.