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Everything I Know About Zombies, I Learned in Kindergarten
When the apocalypse strikes, nine-year-old Letitia Johnson gathers her five-year-old sister and her sister's classmates and hides them all in a school bathroom. Five days later, after hunger finally drives the small group out of hiding, Letitia finds herself in an evacuated Bronx, desperately improvising a strategy for survival.
Distrustful of the small groups of heavily-armed adults that remained behind, Letitia is forced into a sudden, awkward, and clumsy adulthood as she tries to keep twelve kindergarteners together and alive, learning and teaching the new skills they need as she goes. Letitia's toolkit for this adulthood is sparse: vague and contradictory statements from a series of foster parents, poorly understood religious lessons from televangelists, and survival skills gleaned from television shows. When Letitia finally turns to one group of adults for help, she finds that they aren't even doing as well as she is.
Reminiscent of "The Walking Dead" and "Lord of the Flies," this is a horror novel for adults.
Distrustful of the small groups of heavily-armed adults that remained behind, Letitia is forced into a sudden, awkward, and clumsy adulthood as she tries to keep twelve kindergarteners together and alive, learning and teaching the new skills they need as she goes. Letitia's toolkit for this adulthood is sparse: vague and contradictory statements from a series of foster parents, poorly understood religious lessons from televangelists, and survival skills gleaned from television shows. When Letitia finally turns to one group of adults for help, she finds that they aren't even doing as well as she is.
Reminiscent of "The Walking Dead" and "Lord of the Flies," this is a horror novel for adults.
302 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 2, 2014
11 people are currently reading
175 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
July 8, 2015
Lawd, This book was crazy.
My son saw this on my kindle and wanted to read it, but I told him he had to finish his other book first. I’m happy I said no because this was book would have given him nightmares. It’s definitely not for children or for the squeamish. It involves children in a zombie apocalypse, so I don’t think I’m giving too much away when I say kids die in this book. Still, I was surprised (and a bit mad) when it happened.
I wasn’t too impressed with the beginning, but it was a decent set up for the rest of the book, which was exceptionally good. I loved it, despite all of the bad things happening. Usually, a book starts out good and fizzles in the middle, so I shouldn’t complain too much about the beginning in this book.
Leticia, the heroine in Zombies, has been added to the list of bad-ass female heroines that can rock a zombie apocalypse. She successfully led a class full of kindergartners through the apocalypse by using her wit. I also related to Leticia character because she had a speech impediment. I was in speech and remedial classes as a kid (Suck it stupid teachers because I’m an engineer now. Boom in your face. Remedial classes my arse.) Leticia is also called emotionless (and calculating and dangerous) by the adults she encounters later, and I’ve also been told that I was emotionless (and too literal).
Seriously, my husband will prod me into arguments just so he can see me react “emotionally” to something. So yeah, me and Leticia are on the same spectrum.
If you would have told me I would have read four zombie books, I would have laughed in your face, but a good book is a good book, despite zombies. And of course, I cried twice. Damn. I’m such a sucker.
The author will be doing an interview with the Blerd Book Club on Sunday, July 12 at 3pm on Twitter Via Google Hangouts. Y’all should come hang out.
May 6, 2015
Wow! A Zombie Apocalypse as seen through the eyes of a young black child. Who would have thunk it? And if you think this is your average light-hearted YA dystopian thriller keep it moving. Because this book is not for the faint of heart. What these children have to endure, to survive after civilization collapses and adults turn on each other is horrifying. This book had me to the point where I could not literally put it down because I wanted to see what happened next to Letitia and her young charges. Some of the passages are so haunting that they will stay with you for days. You will find yourself still rooting for the kids although they lost their humanity in their struggle for survival and the only kid ‘like’ about them is their age. The author does a great job of showing the devolution of the human soul when it’s constantly faced with zombies and other humans that are worse than zombies. The ending leads one to believe there might be sequel coming and I for one hope so.
February 17, 2016
Alrighty! Read this for #blerdbookclub, my first ever. The book was good. Told mainly from the perspective of a 9yo girl who has more foresight and intuitiveness than most adults I know. It irks me to read children speaking in bad English, especially when written by a white person (yes, I said that), but this wasn't too heavy handed. And the story was good. Truth is, in an apocalypse, the kids growing up in tragic life situations probably will be the best equipped to handle themselves. I've planned a self- inflicted gun wound at the first sight of Walkers, myself. IJS
The #twitterchat was also a good time. The author talked about alternative endings he considered, one of which would have been TOO MUCH TO HANDLE!
The #twitterchat was also a good time. The author talked about alternative endings he considered, one of which would have been TOO MUCH TO HANDLE!
May 19, 2015
Ok, this makes two zombie books I've read this year, but don't expect the trend to continue. This one caught my eye because the strongest character is a 9 year old little black girl from the Bronx who goes to rescue her little sister during the zombie apocalypse, only to end up with a dozen kindergartners in her care. Using the Buddy System and motivation through literature, she teaches them to be little badasses and keeps them (mainly) alive.
But it's also a little about adult privilege, and white privilege. And about how you should never trust anyone over 30.
It was very entertaining and a quick read.
But it's also a little about adult privilege, and white privilege. And about how you should never trust anyone over 30.
It was very entertaining and a quick read.
November 3, 2015
All I could picture was Michonne at the age of 9.
April 8, 2022
Loved it.
A really unique take on the zombie genre. Sometimes kids are relegated to the back of the story but this time their resilience is front and center.
A really unique take on the zombie genre. Sometimes kids are relegated to the back of the story but this time their resilience is front and center.
May 23, 2015
"Everything I know about Zombies, I learned in Kindergarten," by Kevin Wayne Williams, is a zombie story following a group of inner-city children from New York. Williams sells this story as being unique because it follows 1) a group of kids 2) who aren't white. He's said the story was inspired by watching "The Walking Dead" and the way PoC (People of Color) on the show are treated, and by two little girls that he's known.
My perception of the book is very strongly impacted by having read it right after "the Day the Dead Came To Show And Tell" by Mira Grant. Set in her existing Newsflesh world and narrated by characters I'm already invested in, "Show and Tell" quickly and compellingly portrays a zombie breakout at a public school and a teacher leading a group of first graders and kindergarteners to the safety of the school roof to be evacuated. "Show and Tell" is tense and tightly written and touches on larger social issues such as the way the government fails students by contracting services to the lowest bidder, and the way people allow themselves to be ruled by fear... and how quickly people in control move to take advantage of that.
"Learned in Kindergarten" touches on larger issues as well, notably the way adults underestimate children and don't see the obvious. The writing is rough, however, and as the parent of a 6 year old who's spent a great deal of time in a Kindergarten and First Grade classroom I don't think actual children would adapt quite as quickly or behave quite as well as the kids in Williams' book. "But Brigid, how can you nitpick fiction this way?" Well, part of the reason we're able to believe the fantastic is because it's rooted in the real. 5 year olds, even terrified ones, behaving the way Williams portrays them? Feels unrealistic and makes it hard to sink into the narrative.
The characters in general are barely sketched out. The younger kids are pretty much interchangeable with little in the way of distinguishing characteristics. This makes it hard to care about what happens to them, even when primed to care about little kids. The writing in general is uneven, and it relies a bit too heavily on existing zombie tropes including the disgusting baby-dies-in-utero-and-is-a-zombie one. And, of course, in a zombie apocalypse, it makes a ton of sense that men would rape women in areas crawling with zombies.
I wanted to like this book, for a lot of reasons. I wanted to like a book about diverse kids surviving, even thriving, against the odds. But it's an incredibly depressing book. There is no way around it: the kids are going to die and they are going to turn into zombies, and if they're female they're probably going to be raped first because Williams apparently can imagine a world with zombies but can't imagine a world without rape. Personally, if I were a dude living in a world where dead people rise up as zombies and there's zombies all over the place I wouldn't pause my foraging to beat and try to rape a woman under a bush while little kids looked on, but hey.
To its credit, I keep thinking about this book. There's some neat stuff going on and the kids are REALLY resourceful, and do some of the stuff I would do in an urban area in a zombie invasion. But there's a lot that viscerally bothers me about this book as well. If you want little kids and zombies, check out "The Day The Dead Came To Show and Tell." If you want a diverse cast dealing with supernatural stuff, check out D. J. Older's "Bone Street Rumba" books. If Williams writes something else- especially if he gets an editor- I'll give it a try. I don't regret purchasing or reading this book. But there's better zombie fare out there.
My perception of the book is very strongly impacted by having read it right after "the Day the Dead Came To Show And Tell" by Mira Grant. Set in her existing Newsflesh world and narrated by characters I'm already invested in, "Show and Tell" quickly and compellingly portrays a zombie breakout at a public school and a teacher leading a group of first graders and kindergarteners to the safety of the school roof to be evacuated. "Show and Tell" is tense and tightly written and touches on larger social issues such as the way the government fails students by contracting services to the lowest bidder, and the way people allow themselves to be ruled by fear... and how quickly people in control move to take advantage of that.
"Learned in Kindergarten" touches on larger issues as well, notably the way adults underestimate children and don't see the obvious. The writing is rough, however, and as the parent of a 6 year old who's spent a great deal of time in a Kindergarten and First Grade classroom I don't think actual children would adapt quite as quickly or behave quite as well as the kids in Williams' book. "But Brigid, how can you nitpick fiction this way?" Well, part of the reason we're able to believe the fantastic is because it's rooted in the real. 5 year olds, even terrified ones, behaving the way Williams portrays them? Feels unrealistic and makes it hard to sink into the narrative.
The characters in general are barely sketched out. The younger kids are pretty much interchangeable with little in the way of distinguishing characteristics. This makes it hard to care about what happens to them, even when primed to care about little kids. The writing in general is uneven, and it relies a bit too heavily on existing zombie tropes including the disgusting baby-dies-in-utero-and-is-a-zombie one. And, of course, in a zombie apocalypse, it makes a ton of sense that men would rape women in areas crawling with zombies.
I wanted to like this book, for a lot of reasons. I wanted to like a book about diverse kids surviving, even thriving, against the odds. But it's an incredibly depressing book. There is no way around it: the kids are going to die and they are going to turn into zombies, and if they're female they're probably going to be raped first because Williams apparently can imagine a world with zombies but can't imagine a world without rape. Personally, if I were a dude living in a world where dead people rise up as zombies and there's zombies all over the place I wouldn't pause my foraging to beat and try to rape a woman under a bush while little kids looked on, but hey.
To its credit, I keep thinking about this book. There's some neat stuff going on and the kids are REALLY resourceful, and do some of the stuff I would do in an urban area in a zombie invasion. But there's a lot that viscerally bothers me about this book as well. If you want little kids and zombies, check out "The Day The Dead Came To Show and Tell." If you want a diverse cast dealing with supernatural stuff, check out D. J. Older's "Bone Street Rumba" books. If Williams writes something else- especially if he gets an editor- I'll give it a try. I don't regret purchasing or reading this book. But there's better zombie fare out there.
December 14, 2015
As is obvious from the title, this book is about zombies. Well, to be more accurate, it's about kids surviving the zombie apocalypse in New York City. The whole idea of it was cool, the editing was pretty amazing, and the title is wonderful. If you like zombie stories, you'll probably like this.
On the positive side, I cheered many times, mainly when the kids did something especially clever, and I wanted them to succeed even though I didn't feel close to them. Who doesn't want kids to succeed, right? There are a lot of cool ideas-interesting survival strategies in particular-and most of the time the kids behaved pretty much the way I would expect them to, except that I still think there should have been a lot more crying and whining. I'm glad there wasn't, but it would have made the kids feel more real. One thing I really enjoyed about the book is that the characters are widely diverse and have realistic backgrounds. I liked that they weren't all orphans, or all rich kids, or magicians or anything. Not that I have anything against magicians, but it's fun to read about normal people.
I did have a few gripes, which go to show my preferences more than any objective failure, but since you may have the same peeves as I do, I will share. First, I didn't feel connection between the characters, even siblings, which was very odd. Second, sometimes I was confused because the point of view changed throughout the scenes, giving me omniscience, except not really because I was only able to see what was happening in the characters heads, not what was happening in the wide world. Third, although gross, brutal events happened regularly, I never felt scared or creeped out. Fourth, sometimes it felt like things didn't line up, for example, the kids are stuck in a bathroom for days (maybe? It wasn't really clear), but then they act like they've just missed snack, not like they're famished. I also really disliked the ending and its lack of resolution, but I think that was the point.
When I break things down it sounds like a lot of things bothered me, but overall I really enjoyed reading the book. I stayed up late with it a couple times, and looked forward to picking it up as life permitted. For what it was, it was well written and a good read. There are some great moments, and I laughed at the adults trying to cope with the feral kids, even if the adults were more or less idiots.
Language: Some foul language.
Sexual Content: Rape is talked about, but not described.
Violence: Of course! Zombie violence and human violence.
Overall message/plot: No message, basic survival plot. It was fun having an entire survival story set in one city, and great watching the kids outmaneuver the zombies and human adults.
I received a free copy of this book through Diverse Book Tours.
rawhitebooksandmore dot weebly dot com
On the positive side, I cheered many times, mainly when the kids did something especially clever, and I wanted them to succeed even though I didn't feel close to them. Who doesn't want kids to succeed, right? There are a lot of cool ideas-interesting survival strategies in particular-and most of the time the kids behaved pretty much the way I would expect them to, except that I still think there should have been a lot more crying and whining. I'm glad there wasn't, but it would have made the kids feel more real. One thing I really enjoyed about the book is that the characters are widely diverse and have realistic backgrounds. I liked that they weren't all orphans, or all rich kids, or magicians or anything. Not that I have anything against magicians, but it's fun to read about normal people.
I did have a few gripes, which go to show my preferences more than any objective failure, but since you may have the same peeves as I do, I will share. First, I didn't feel connection between the characters, even siblings, which was very odd. Second, sometimes I was confused because the point of view changed throughout the scenes, giving me omniscience, except not really because I was only able to see what was happening in the characters heads, not what was happening in the wide world. Third, although gross, brutal events happened regularly, I never felt scared or creeped out. Fourth, sometimes it felt like things didn't line up, for example, the kids are stuck in a bathroom for days (maybe? It wasn't really clear), but then they act like they've just missed snack, not like they're famished. I also really disliked the ending and its lack of resolution, but I think that was the point.
When I break things down it sounds like a lot of things bothered me, but overall I really enjoyed reading the book. I stayed up late with it a couple times, and looked forward to picking it up as life permitted. For what it was, it was well written and a good read. There are some great moments, and I laughed at the adults trying to cope with the feral kids, even if the adults were more or less idiots.
Language: Some foul language.
Sexual Content: Rape is talked about, but not described.
Violence: Of course! Zombie violence and human violence.
Overall message/plot: No message, basic survival plot. It was fun having an entire survival story set in one city, and great watching the kids outmaneuver the zombies and human adults.
I received a free copy of this book through Diverse Book Tours.
rawhitebooksandmore dot weebly dot com
March 8, 2015
A bioweapon is released on the east coast. Chaos breaks loose outside PS43 (Public School #43) in the Bronx. Fortunately, nine-year-old Letitia Johnson finds Jahayra, her little sister, but there are other frightened kindergarteners who also need help. Not quite what she has in mind, Letitia takes the lead by not only training the five year olds to use garden stakes to kill the zombies, but also encouraging them to be brave like the engine in The Little Engine That Could -- the book she eventually reads nightly to them. Once the troupe scours the area stores for food and supplies, Letitia leads them to the iconic hospital on North Brother Island for shelter. An emergency situation forces Letitia and the others to seek help from a handful of adult survivors on another island. While the two groups join forces to fight against looters and zombies, it is only a matter of time who will actually survive.
Kevin Wayne Williams' debut book is laced with paradox. Much of Williams' third person narrative reflects the simple mindset of children amid horrendous circumstances. Good examples are how they think in terms of playing games during target practice as they are learning how to use various weapons, and how they expect routines, like nightly prayers and bedtime stories. Although they are surrounded by devastation, the children still anticipate that somewhere out there in the world, there is a normalcy...
...read more at UndergroundBookReviews(dot)com!
Kevin Wayne Williams' debut book is laced with paradox. Much of Williams' third person narrative reflects the simple mindset of children amid horrendous circumstances. Good examples are how they think in terms of playing games during target practice as they are learning how to use various weapons, and how they expect routines, like nightly prayers and bedtime stories. Although they are surrounded by devastation, the children still anticipate that somewhere out there in the world, there is a normalcy...
...read more at UndergroundBookReviews(dot)com!
March 29, 2022
This is a cute story about how children would survive during a Zombie apocalypse. Letitia, our main character, is 9 years old. One day she is at school with her sister (who is in kindergarten), when a Zombie apocalypse breaks out. Most of the teachers die while trying to fight the monsters, and Letitia immediately runs to her sister's classroom to save her. What she wasn't counting on was the other 20 or so students in the class as well.
Since she is the oldest, she takes charge, sharing out the children's bagged lunches, having them hide in the bathroom when Zombies finally breach the building, etc. After a few days of hiding out, when things have quieted down, she realizes they cannot stay there.
The rest of the book is an adventure as Letitia and the kindergarteners travel through the Bronx, learning how to feed themselves, kill zombies, liberate useful items from stores, and stay away from the adults!
It was a very cute story, (although of course it is dark as well as any Zombie novel would be). If it is a tiny bit unbelievable at times due to the ages, who really knows what children might be capable of if they needed to protect themselves and their friends from monsters? A fun read.
Since she is the oldest, she takes charge, sharing out the children's bagged lunches, having them hide in the bathroom when Zombies finally breach the building, etc. After a few days of hiding out, when things have quieted down, she realizes they cannot stay there.
The rest of the book is an adventure as Letitia and the kindergarteners travel through the Bronx, learning how to feed themselves, kill zombies, liberate useful items from stores, and stay away from the adults!
It was a very cute story, (although of course it is dark as well as any Zombie novel would be). If it is a tiny bit unbelievable at times due to the ages, who really knows what children might be capable of if they needed to protect themselves and their friends from monsters? A fun read.
December 29, 2020
Whoa - discovered this book thanks to the recommendation of my friend Cecily. When I couldn't find it at my local library, she bought me a copy! It's nice to find a hidden gem of a book like this.
This book takes a fresh and original spin on the traditional zombie tale, while staying really true to the canon. This definitely falls in the horror genre - if you're squeamish about death and guts, you might find it hard, but the actual violence is often muted, and shown through the eyes of children who don't always make sense of what they are seeing. I couldn't put it down, but at the same time I HAD to put it down or I would get too tense, worrying about what was going to happen next!
This book takes a fresh and original spin on the traditional zombie tale, while staying really true to the canon. This definitely falls in the horror genre - if you're squeamish about death and guts, you might find it hard, but the actual violence is often muted, and shown through the eyes of children who don't always make sense of what they are seeing. I couldn't put it down, but at the same time I HAD to put it down or I would get too tense, worrying about what was going to happen next!
November 7, 2016
I'm not sure what I was expecting when I started this but a third of the way in and I was hooked. This really works and the way the children respond to the crisis and grow with it is probably more horrifying than the zombies. In fact by the end it is the surviving humans that do the most evil. Still I would recommend this to fans of zombie books and even one's who've never read one. I'm not typically a fan of dialog with a lot of inflection and the broken English of the main character Letitia did grate on my nerves but the rest of the story kept me going along.
January 5, 2020
One of my favorite books
December 19, 2017
This book grew on me. Very interesting twist on the zombie apocalypse.
July 17, 2020
Great concept. Wonderful main character. Two unnecessary rape scenes—really detracted from my enjoyment of this book.
July 19, 2022
One of the best zombie novels I've read, hopefully they adapt it into a movie one day
September 8, 2024
A fresh perspective on zombies 🧟♀️. This is a good book, great characters and plot. I am not sure all adults would have made some of the voices they did… but it a good book and very entertaining
January 16, 2015
It's a very quick and easy read. I read it in 7 hours. The storyline is interesting and while a lot of it would be unlikely, it's a story and if you take it as such, and if you like apocalyptic stories, you'll enjoy this. I didn't love the ending, but in a situation like this, not everyone is going to make it. If you are into prepping, this book definitely gives you some things to think about. I enjoyed it a lot.
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August 28, 2016Don't Waste Your Time
It was too predictable. The voice of the main character did feel authentic. I skipped chapters out of boredom. It was difficult to maintain interest.
It was too predictable. The voice of the main character did feel authentic. I skipped chapters out of boredom. It was difficult to maintain interest.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews