Summary

“Magic Mirrors” by Jesmyn Ward is the first essay in Well-Read Black Girl. As a child, Ward desired to escape her reality through literature that could serve as a ‘mirror’: she wanted to see characters that were female and black like her, though with a touch more magic. Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKimley, and Me, Elizabeth was the first book she encountered with a likeable black female protagonist who, as a bonus, was a witch. This made the protagonist powerful in a way the young Ward longed to be. However, when it became apparent the girl is no witch at all, only a poor, hungry, black girl desirous of escape, the Ward says she realized how difficult it is for black women like her to find a ‘mirror’ in literature that provides some escape from harsher realities.

The second...