Okorafor’s writing is well wrought and yet still simple. It doesn’t take long to by sympathetically drawn to this young girl and her plight. She’s bullied, and mocked, and even beaten on by some her classmates, one in particular, and it isn’t until one of the other onlookers in her class steps up to defend Sunny during a fight that she has what might even meagerly be called a friend. And that’s if you actually fit in, it’s tough. If you don’t remember much about middle school… it can be tough. As an American and an albino, she very literally sticks out like a sore thumb in every aspect of her life there. Sunny Nwazue is a twelve year-old black albino girl that was born in America but moved to Nigeria when she was nine. It’s a relatively old book for us to be reviewing (2011), but when I went looking for “the best” books that included diverse backgrounds, this was one that I found listed near the top of nearly all sources I came across. If they don’t, they don’t.” Was an interesting dichotomy to try and swallow, and not the only one I found in this read.ĪKATA WITCH ( Amazon) is the first of the Akata Witch series of books by author Nnedi Okorafor. Because on the one hand, this story totally has adults “dealing with the important stuff”, but on the other hand, there are also several adults that are more than willing to throw children into deadly situations, shrug their shoulders, and say, “If they live, they live. This was a very interesting novel to read, given that perspective. I have a difficult time believing that any story that is told expressly about kids has a more important question to answer. How do you keep the grown-ups from coming in and hijacking the story completely while still making it all believable.

Do you know what the biggest problem is for an author trying to write a novel about kids that are caught in the middle of very dangerous events? Parents.

Akata witch