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Confession: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston has always intimidated me. As an English teacher (and someone who teaches a unit on the Harlem Renaissance) I always felt like a bit of a fraud. I tried once, after college, but I struggled with the vernacular and decided to set it aside. Recently, I decided to pick up the audiobook narrated by Ruby Dee, and it changed everything. She brings these characters, accents, and moments to life and I was hooked! I talk up audiobooks to my students all the time and frequently listen to them myself, but I never used audio as a support for reading a text I struggled with until now. I’m so grateful because without them, I may never have read this beautiful, empowering, funny, infuriating, inspiring, heartbreaking story. I loved Janie so much and saw much of myself in her struggle to find her place and defy the expectations society has of her. There are so many lines I am still thinking about, long after I turned the last page: “There are years that ask questions, and years that answer.” “Two things everybody's got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin' fuh theyselves.” “Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches.” It’s been a long time since I pushed myself out of my comfort zone in terms of reading, and my experience with Their Eyes Were Watching God has encouraged me to do it more often! via Instagram https://instagr.am/p/CMcOPtQg6d0/