Excerpts

Stardust What if on the day she was born there was a quiet storm of tiny shimmering dust that settled on tree leaves, on flower petals, on rooftops, on the ground, on the shiny work shoes, and glided through open windows to settle on hardwood floors? Maybe there was a storm of stardust and this was how Laurice James Butler and Octavia Margaret Butler gave birth to a baby girl named Octavia Estelle Butler, a star child. Dawn Laurice James Butler, who worked as a shoeshine man, and Octavia Margaret Butler, who worked as a live-in domestic servant, were married on May 17, 1931, in Los Angeles, California. On June 22, 1947, in Pasadena, California, they gave birth to a baby girl whom they named Octavia Estelle Butler. Laurice died on February 16, 1951, when Octavia was almost four years old. She knew very little about her father. She was raised by her mother and grandmother--two hardworking and God-fearing matriarchs. For a brief period, she also lived with her two uncles, each like a father to her. Octavia Margaret Butler, her mother, was the greatest constant in her life. She was born in Louisiana in 1914 and lived on a sugarcane plantation before migrating with her family--and hundreds of thousands of other African Americans--to Southern California as part of the Great Migration that was reshaping cities in the North and West. Excerpted from Star Child: A Biographical Constellation of Octavia Estelle Butler by Ibi Zoboi All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.