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J.J. Reneaux
August House Publishers, September 1998.
90-minute audiotape

You know that warm, fuzzy feeling you get when you hear the dialect of your heart, the tones and inflections of your "people?" Admittedly, hearing those voices for some brings only reminders of a past they'd rather forget. For me and lots of other folks, though, who are for whatever reason surrounded by the sounds of another world, a grown-up world that feels light years from youth, hearing childhood dialects can have a stabilizing effect on one's soul.

That's how I felt when I first heard J. J. Reneaux's "Wake, Snake!" with my toddler. I felt doubly warmed by knowing that my son was hearing, perhaps for the first time in his life, the sounds of my own upbringing.

Cajun storyteller Reneaux sings songs and tells tales from the areas along the Gulf Coast (the Gulf of Mexico, that is) from where I and my ancestors hail. She deftly combines traditional folk stories with personal tales of growing up in the South in a way that can mesmerize both young and old.

Though she can whoop through those Acadian verbal shortcuts like a true-born Cajun, Reneaux includes stories that highlight all of the richness of the area's culture, from Native American to African to European. Particularly pleasing to a child's ear are her whimsical tales of how varying animals became the way they are or made the world what it is today.

While I still live in the very city in which I was born, the oil-spurred growth and resulting changes here have made it a far cry from the world I grew up in, where lunch was "dinner" and dinner was "supper." Rarely am I even around folks now who talk like we did back then, and after just a few minutes drive worth of listening to J. J. Reneaux, I find myself sounding like my Momma (or was it my godmother?) as I tell my son, "Git on out now, le's go, le's go!"

Reneaux fans know that "Wake, Snake!" is just her first of several audiotapes and books, most of which are available at Amazon (try that nifty button by the cover picture up-top!) and other booksellers. You can also visit Ms. Reneaux's website to order her work, check out her touring schedule (including such faraway spots as Utah and Canada), or get the details on her school programs.