Akata Witch

"What I loved most about this book were the mythological aspects. In Nigeria and in much of Africa , the supernatural is still very much a part of everyday life and I find the idea of a magical world, parallel to ours, absolutely befitting in an African setting. The story is about 12 year old Sunny, a Nigerian-American albino girl who moves to Nigeria from America and has problems fitting in. When a boy in her class rescues her from a bully and becomes her friend, she soon discovers she has magical abilities and is initiated into the Leopard society, a magical parallel world. Sunny and her new friends soon find themselves on a dangerous mission to stop a terrible and evil villain. Nnedi Okorafor has an exceptionally creative mind (which anyone who has read any of her other books will already know) and in Akata Witch she created a stunning world skilfully interwoven with Igbo mythology. Some of the wonderful curiosities of the mythology are the fiery palm-frond-covered masquerade Ekwensu, and the Tungwas, which are floating balls of flesh that can spontaneously explode into tufts of hair and teeth. I love that she included the Nsibidi scripts, a fascinating old writing system in southern Nigeria that is said to date back earlier than 400 AD."

"I always find it an interesting puzzle when a novel is published with a different title in different territories—I always want to know: what’s the tension behind those changes? It’s technically a YA novel, but it’s extremely dark. Essentially, it’s about a 13-year-old girl called Sunny who was born in America and lives in Nigeria. She is of Nigerian heritage, and also has albinism. She discovers she has magical powers, and is initiated into a magical society and trained for this new second life as an Akata witch. It’s quite an unusual narrative, and I get the sense from other people I’ve talked to who have read it that either you love it or hate it. I cheated with this one, I have to confess, because it’s not actually a boarding school that she attends; rather, as she and her friends discover their newfound magical abilities, they are initiated into the learning system of this new magical world. And so alongside her usual schooling, she has to attend secret school sessions with her mentor. A lot of this takes place in a particular magical zone called Leopard Knocks. I think it works as a hypothetical boarding school novel because, again, it does such a great job of running those two lives you have as an adolescent in parallel: there’s the life that you have with your parents, your family, homework. Then there’s the parallel life where you have this kind of secret identity that you forge through mentors, a found family that you select for yourself. In the book, there’s a magical taboo that stops Sunny from being able to communicate her separate life to her family. But there’s a clear analogy there about inhabiting those split identities. “There’s a lot you can read into YA novels—that moment where your identity begins to separate from your childhood and your family life” The pace is unrelenting: information comes really fast. It’s been compared to a Nigerian Harry Potter series , which I think does it a terrible disservice. The magical world that Sunny and her friends belong to is so idiosyncratic, so vibrant, so dangerous and deadly. There’s no safety net whatsoever. There are deaths, bloody beatings, at the end Sunny and her friends get sent to fight a serial killer who murders children. The lack of protection in this parallel world just reinforces the importance of those relationships the children have with each other. I have to be honest, this was published in 2011 and some aspects haven’t aged that well, for example, the main character’s albinism is kind of ‘cured’ by magic. But the book overall is so refreshing and arresting. Coming-of-age novels often are categorised as part of the YA genre, which I sometimes find frustrating. But even as an adult, there’s a lot you can read into YA novels, particularly that moment where your identity begins to separate from your childhood and your family life."

"Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor has been recommended before on Five Books , including by author Efua Traoré in her interview on the best West African fantasy books for teens . The villain in the first book in the trilogy (published in Nigeria as What Sunny Saw in the Flames) is a serial killer who draws power from the life and innocence of child victims, so this book is generally recommended for readers age 12 and early teens rather than younger middle grade readers. Sunny, the protagonist, needs to figure out who she is and what powers she may have inherited from her grandmother, and stop the villain from increasing his magic. Sunny is constantly striving to maintain balance in her life: between the USA and Nigeria, and between her love of football and her albinism (which means she can’t play in the sun). Hardest of all, having discovered that she is a powerful Leopard person she must keep her new world of magic secret from her family. In the magical world she needs to catch up with her new friends in juju, shape-shifting and spells at breakneck pace. This is an award-winning series, and the Akata Witch audio version, narrated by Yetide Badaki, was selected as an ‘Amazing Audiobook for Young Adults’ by the American Library Association ."