Review of Ghost Knight, by Cornelia Funke

Ghost Knight

by Cornelia Funke
read by Elliot Hill

Originally published in German in 2011.
English translation by Oliver Latsch, Random House, 2012.
Listening Library, 2012. 5 hours on 4 compact discs.
Starred Review

I’m a sucker for a good British accent, and Elliot Hill is simply marvellous at reading this audiobook. I’m not sure I would have enjoyed the book as much if I had read it myself, since I’m not a big fan of ghost stories. But Elliot Hill started off with the pitch-perfect voice of a British schoolboy angry with his potential stepfather “The Beard,” and sent off to boarding school in Salisbury. (And be sure you hear “Salisbury” in your head with a British accent!)

There’s wonderful atmosphere. The school is located in an old Bishop’s Palace, and the Cathedral is haunted by some of the knights buried there. But right away, Jon Whitcroft finds out he’s in trouble. A horrible ghost with a rope around his neck comes with four servants and they are after Jon, calling him “Hartgill,” his mother’s maiden name. It turns out that dead lord was executed for murdering a Hartgill centuries before.

Only Jon can see the ghosts, and he’s in trouble until one of his schoolmates — the only one who believes him — suggests that he ask a dead knight for help. Though it’s not as simple as Jon hopes.

Like I said, I’m not a huge fan of ghost stories. But many children are, and this one would make a fabulous family listen-along. You’ve got a likable 11-year-old kid caught in the middle of truly scary adventures with historical overtones. And did I mention the wonderful British accents?

listeninglibrary.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/ghost_knight.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Once Upon a Toad, by Heather Vogel Frederick

Once Upon a Toad

by Heather Vogel Frederick

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2012. 263 pages.

I always like fairy tale take-offs, and this book takes elements from the classic fairy tale “Toads and Diamonds” and puts them in a modern context, with two stepsisters living in Portland.

What would you do if you suddenly started spouting toads any time you made a vocal noise? And what if your mean stepsister, at the same time, started spouting flowers and diamonds?

This isn’t intended to be an exact copy of the fairy tale, set in modern times. No, the idea for the spell in this story was taken from the classic fairy tale. Only it got a bit muddled, and the stepsister we would have called the good one (since she is, after all, the narrator) is the one who got the toads.

Cat Starr has to live with her father’s new family while her mother is in outer space (really!) on the International Space Station. That wouldn’t be so bad — Cat loves her Dad and her little brother and gets along great with her stepmother — if it weren’t that she had to share a room with her stepsister and go to middle school classes with her. They have nothing in common, it seems, and Olivia can be just plain mean.

But when Cat talks it over with Great-Aunt Abyssinia, she’s not at all prepared for what happens next.

This is a fun take-off on the fairy tale. There are plenty of implausibilities. There are bumbling crooks, sinister government figures, and some mysterious magic happening a bit randomly. But, hey, when were fairy tales ever plausible?

heathervogelfrederick.com
KIDS.SimonandSchuster.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/once_upon_a_toad.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of The Last Dragonslayer, by Jasper Fforde

The Last Dragonslayer

by Jasper Fforde

Harcourt, Boston, 2012. 287 pages.
Starred Review

Hooray! Jasper Fforde has taken his silliness, his clever quirkiness, and written a fantasy novel for young adults. The world seems fairly similar to ours — only with magic and dragons. And strange, quirky details, like marzipan mines and the poor and downtrodden marzipan addicts.

The front page of the book — right before Chapter One — tells exactly what happens:

Once, I was famous. My face was seen on T-shirts, badges, commemorative mugs, and posters. I made front-page news, appeared on TV, and was even a special guest on The Yogi Baird Daytime TV Show. The Daily Clam called me “the year’s most influential teenager,” and I was the Mollusc on Sunday‘s Woman of the Year. Two people tried to kill me, I was threatened with jail, had fifty-eight offers of marriage, and was outlawed by King Snodd IV. All that and more besides, and in less than a week.

My name is Jennifer Strange.

Jennifer Strange starts out the book managing a house full of magicians. She’s almost sixteen, a foundling, and an indentured servant, and she doesn’t have any magic herself, but their founder has disappeared, and she’s far more practical than any magic-user, so the post has fallen to her.

When a premonition comes up that the Last Dragon is about to die, the whole country (and others besides) is in uproar. Because when a dragon dies, his lands can be divided up, on a first-come, first-served basis. When it turns out to have been foreseen that Jennifer is the Last Dragonslayer, she finds herself in the very center of earth-shaking events.

This paragraph about those who work for Kazam Mystical Arts Management will give you an idea of the style:

Of the forty-five sorcerers, movers, soothsayers, shifters, weather-mongers, carpeteers, and other assorted mystical artisans at Kazam, most were fully retired due to infirmity, insanity, or damage to the vital index fingers, either through accident or rheumatoid arthritis. Of these forty-five, thirteen were potentially capable of working, but only nine had current licenses — two carpeteers, a pair of pre-cogs, and most important, five sorcerers legally empowered to carry out Acts of Enchantment. Lady Mawgon was certainly the crabbiest and probably the most skilled. As with everyone else at Kazam, her powers had faded dramatically over the past three decades or so, but unlike everyone else, she’d not really come to terms with it. In her defense, she’d had farther to fall than the rest of them, but this wasn’t really an excuse. The Sisters Karamazov could also claim once-royal patronage, and they were nice as apricot pie. Mad as a knapsack of onions, but pleasant nonetheless.

When I finished this book, I actually laughed happily. It is highly possible that you have to have a similar sense of humor to truly enjoy Jasper Fforde’s work, but I certainly do. This book definitely stands alone just fine, and the story is complete in itself. All the same, I’m very happy to see “The Chronicles of Kazam, Book One” on the title page, because it will definitely be fun to visit this world again.

I suspect that fans of Jasper Fforde’s books for adults will enjoy this one as well. The quirkiness and esoteric references are toned down a tiny bit, the book is shorter and the protagonist younger, but the flavor is the same. And I do hope that it will capture some fans for him much younger than before. Who says high fantasy has to be deadly serious? This is a book that will make nerdy teens laugh, and I say that with utmost respect.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/last_dragonslayer.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Ordinary Magic, by Caitlen Rubino-Bradway

Ordinary Magic

by Caitlen Rubino-Bradway

Bloomsbury, New York, 2012. 276 pages.
Starred Review

Abby Hale lives in a world where it’s normal to have magic. She’s the youngest of five children, and her two older sisters and two older brothers all came out as having very high levels of magic at their Judging.

But Abby? She’s twelve years old and ready for her Judging. And it turns out she has no magic at all. She’s completely ordinary, called an Ord by “normal” people.

Ords are considered barely human. However, they do have one skill in this magical world — magic doesn’t affect them, so they can walk right through charms and protective spells. Because of this, Adventurers like to have an Ord along to make treasure accessible. And they’re willing to do whatever it takes to get one.

Fortunately, Abby’s family would never sell her, ordinary or not. In fact, her sister works at a school established for Ords in the capital city, a school that’s supposed to keep them safe.

But staying safe isn’t easy in a world accustomed to thinking of Ords as having no rights.

This book was a lot of fun, especially all the ways it was exactly the opposite of Harry Potter. Instead of learning she’s a Wizard in a world of Muggles, Abby finds out she’s an Ord in a world of Magic Users — normal people.

I love the way the author conveys what’s normal in that world. For example, Abby’s complaining about the “realistic” fiction she has to read in class:

All the authors we read are boring. All the stories we read are about people hating each other and being miserable. And there aren’t even any carpet chases or magic fights or somebody turning somebody else into a toad. There are no dragons. How realistic can you be without dragons?

In another place, parts of their house have been unmagicked, so that Abby can get around in it.

I knew it was a pain for my family at first — to have to use little knobs to turn on the water in the bathroom instead of just poofing the perfect pressure and temperature, and having doors open to just one room instead of whatever room it was you wanted — but nobody said anything.

At school, they’re trained in self-defense, because there are so many people out there who would like to capture them and use them, or, in the case of red caps, eat them. I laughed at this section, where the teacher is explaining why they have to learn more languages than normal people do in their schools:

Here language was required every single year. We were going to learn a different language each year, and in order to graduate to the next grade we’d have to be what Mr. O’Hara called “functionally fluent.”

“Why? So we’re ready to be bought and sold?” Peter muttered under his breath.

“In case you’re bought and sold,” Mr. O’Hara answered so everyone could hear. “I think you’ll find escape much easier if you know the local language.” And then he spent the rest of the class introducing us to Astrin and teaching us the tourist basics, like hello, good-bye, please, thank you, and help, I’m being kidnapped!

In general, this book is a whole lot of fun. It beautifully shows you Abby’s affection for her loving, quirky family. It’s a little weaker in showing her friendships at school. That’s the point where it begins to pale in comparison to Harry Potter. There are also two places where the author destroys the suspense by telling you right up front that Abby gets out of it:

What happened next was my fault. I just want to say that straight out. I know Olivia blamed Peter, and Alexa blamed, you know, the actual people responsible, but I should have known better.

Once she’s said that, at the beginning of the chapter, you just can’t think that she’s going to be away from Olivia and Alexa (her sisters) for very long at all. If they’re arguing about who’s at fault, we know she gets out of the situation before too long.

In another place, we read, “King Steve told me later that they modeled the alarm system on the cries of real-life banshee.” That takes the teeth out of a sentence on the very next page which includes the phrase, “if I got out of this and saw King Steve again…”.

I also wasn’t completely satisfied with where it ended. In the Harry Potter books, I always scoffed that these adventures took precisely one school year. In this book, though there is a climax, the adventure doesn’t feel complete. We have some very important loose threads left hanging. The book ends at the end of the school year, but it feels like a random place to end.

However, these were minor details in a delightful debut novel. This book is full of good-natured teasing between a family who loves each other. It pokes fun at conventions of fantasy stories by turning them on their heads. And along the way, it creates a credible imaginary world and fleshes it out with details. As well as looking closely at how it feels to be on the wrong side of prejudice. I definitely want to read the next book just as soon as it comes out. I want to find out what happens to the loose ends left hanging, and, especially, I want to spend more time with Abby Hale and her family.

www.bloomsburykids.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/ordinary_magic.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of The Girl of Fire and Thorns, by Rae Carson

The Girl of Fire and Thorns

by Rae Carson

Greenwillow Books, 2011. 423 pages.
Starred Review
2012 Morris Award Finalist

This is an impressive debut fantasy novel. The author builds a complex, realistic world, and stands a few fantasy conventions on their heads.

For example, where usually you have the heroine not wanting an arranged marriage because the intended is old and ugly, here’s how this book opens:

“Prayer candles flicker in my bedroom. The Scriptura Sancta lies discarded, pages crumpled, on my bed. Bruises mark my knees from kneeling on the tiles, and the Godstone in my navel throbs. I have been praying — no, begging — that King Alejandro de Vega, my future husband, will be ugly and old and fat.

“Today is the day of my wedding. It is also my sixteenth birthday.”

Elisa is the Chosen One. The whole world knows because of the Godstone in her navel. And her god communicates with her through the Godstone. There are prophecies about her.

One thing I like about this is that no one agrees on what the prophecies actually mean. That seems completely realistic, after all. If there were a prophecy, isn’t it likely that whole factions would have different beliefs about what that prophecy means, about what the Chosen One can do for them?

Elisa’s an unlikely heroine, too. She loves to eat, and is overweight and lazy, at least until circumstances force her to change. This book involves war, state politics, danger, adventure, romance, and even religion.

The biggest thing I didn’t like about this book involved my personal prejudice against present tense novels. Most of the time, the story was able to overcome that so I didn’t notice, but not all the time.

Still, Rae Carson built a fascinating world with this book, and the story is clearly not finished. I will definitely want to read this book again when the sequel comes out and spend more time with these characters.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/girl_of_fire_and_thorns.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Splendors and Glooms, by Laura Amy Schlitz

Splendors and Glooms

by Laura Amy Schlitz

Candlewick Press, 2012. 384 pages.

Splendors and Glooms has been nominated for consideration in two groups I’m part of: Capitol Choices, and the Cybils Awards. I’d already heard speculation about it for the Newbery Medal on Heavy Medal blog. So I wasn’t surprised to find excellent writing. The story, however, isn’t up my alley.

We’ve got a sinister gothic horror tale, beginning in the fogs of London in 1854. There’s a creepy puppeteer who bullies the boy and girl who live with him. There’s a poor little rich girl who lives among memories of her four dead brothers and sisters. And there’s a dying witch, living removed from London, who desperately wants a child to steal her magic fire opal so that she can give it up, so that she won’t be consumed by its fire.

Fans call the book “atmospheric.” I found myself calling it “creepy.” Now, the creepiness is wonderfully crafted. We feel the sinister squalor in which the children live with Grisini, the puppetmaster. We feel the impending doom of Clara’s obsession with the puppets.

Here’s a conversation between the children who live with Grisini after the rich girl, Clara, has disappeared.

Parsefall grabbed her wrist and squeezed it warningly. “We can’t tell the coppers,” he hissed. “There ain’t nuffink to tell. We don’t know nuffink.”

“We know that Grisini knew two other children who disappeared. It must mean something,” hissed Lizzie Rose. “Perhaps the coppers could find out what it is. It might help them find Clara!”

“Grisini would kill us,” Parsefall said desperately. He dug his fingernails into her hand. “If we peached on him, he’d kill us. You don’t know ‘im the way I do.” He heard his voice rise and lowered it again. “Promise me you won’t go to the coppers.”

Lizzie Rose gave a little shiver. She wasn’t promising anything.

So the story is spooky, with slow-growing realization that these children are in the thick of something bad, something dangerous. But on the other hand, the plot is very slow-moving, and by the end the revelations have been foreshadowed so many times, they’re rather anticlimactic. The characters aren’t very likeable, and I found the book awfully easy to put down along the way.

What do you think? Many are lauding this book as a prime Newbery candidate. Laura Amy Schlitz certainly uses language richly and creates a setting where you can almost feel the fog clinging to your clothes. For the Cybils, I’m not sure I can recommend this book as one having kid appeal. But perhaps I’m simply the wrong audience, since in general I don’t like creepy books. I know lots of kids do. If you’ve read the book, I’m curious if you thought the heavy foreshadowing was a flaw or a strength. Feel free to discuss spoilers in the comments.

candlewick.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/splendors_and_glooms.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Liar’s Moon, by Elizabeth C. Bunce

Liar’s Moon

by Elizabeth C. Bunce

Arthur A. Levine Books, Scholastic, 2011. 356 pages.
Starred Review

This book is a sequel to Star Crossed, and I liked Elizabeth Bunce’s first book, A Curse Dark as Gold so much, I bought my own copy of StarCrossed and Liar’s Moon. I did get a chance to reread StarCrossed before I took up Liar’s Moon.

I did enjoy Liar’s Moon, and there’s absolutely no question in my mind that I will snap up the next book. Some details are left very badly hanging, so it’s clear this is intended as at least a trilogy.

This is not your typical second-book-of-a-trilogy, though. After narrowly escaping from her home in the city of Gerse in the first book, Digger is back, trying to survive in the underbelly of the city. Right from the start, she’s captured and thrown into prison — in a cell with Durrell Decath, whom we met at the very start of StarCrossed, but then didn’t see much of.

It turns out that Digger’s in prison just to talk with Durrell. He says he’s been falsely accused of murder. But if he didn’t murder his elderly wife, who did?

If you’re expecting a book very similar to StarCrossed (like I was), then you’re going to be disappointed. But if you take it for what it is — a murder mystery set in a fantastical world, with our heroine scouring the underworld for clues — then there’s lots to enjoy here.

In all her books, Elizabeth Bunce is skilled at making another world seem completely down-to-earth and real.

Now, there’s a huge plot development at the very end, so I think I need to reserve judgment on this trilogy until it finishes up and the story is complete. So far, I enjoyed the first book more, but I definitely liked this one enough to want to reread it when the third book comes out. I definitely want to see more of Digger’s friends, fighting in the war, and find out how that battle turns out. I don’t really understand Digger’s relationship with her brother, and that will probably become more clear with time, too.

But meanwhile I highly recommend this series. The first book gave you conflicting loyalties and magic and secrets. This one gives you a murder mystery set in an alien world. Who knows what will be next?

elizabethcbunce.com
thisisteen.com/liarsmoon
scholastic.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/liars_moon.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

There’s a lot we could discuss about the ending, so please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of The Spy Princess, by Sherwood Smith

The Spy Princess

by Sherwood Smith

Viking, 2012. 386 pages.
Starred Review

Sherwood Smith does politics really well. I know, that sounds boring, but in Sherwood Smith’s hands, it’s not boring, not at all. She takes a medieval world with a kingdom and adds an unhappy populace, but applies realistic, not simplistic solutions. Then she puts her characters in the thick of unrest and change and has them try to figure out what is right and what is best. Oh, and she mixes in some magic along the way.

Sherwood Smith also does romance wonderfully well. Hold on — there’s no romance at all in this book. This one’s about kids embroiled in a kingdom at war, trying to figure out a way to make a difference. I only miss the romance because I know how well she writes it, but this book is firmly for middle grade readers and has all the adventure they could wish for with no mushy stuff.

When Princess Lilah Selenna hears peasant children yelling insults at her family’s carriage, she wants to find out what’s going on. She decides to sneak out and disguise herself as a village boy. When she does, she makes her first friends — but they are planning Revolution.

By another author, this book might be simply about carrying out the revolution. But Sherwood Smith delves a little deeper. Yes, there’s Revolution, but once the peasants are incited to violence, can the leaders get them to stop? Who will govern now and what new laws will be needed? And can they even hold their gains? For Lilah, what part can kids play in bringing about Slam Justice?

Lilah’s uncle the king has banned mages from his kingdom, but she does find some in a hidden valley. So there’s magic and spying and secret passages and vigilante justice and plenty of adventure, with some deep thinking about justice and leadership.

So this was revolution. I remembered how impatient I’d been for it to happen — just so I wouldn’t have to curl my hair. But in my idea of revolution, people gathered to make stirring speeches about how we could better our lives, followed by cheers and exciting trumpet blasts as . . . things somehow changed. Not this horror.

sherwoodsmith.net
penguin.com/youngreaders

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/spy_princess.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a I purchased via Amazon.com.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Beauty and the Werewolf, by Mercedes Lackey

Beauty and the Werewolf

by Mercedes Lackey

Luna, 2011. 329 pages.
Starred Review

I’ve read all of Mercedes Lackey’s Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed each one. They aren’t fairy tale retellings. In some ways they’re fairy tale improvements. They tell us stories of people in fairy tale situations and show us those people figuring out how to come up with a happy ending, despite what the Tradition might want to push them toward.

That’s how magic works in the Five Hundred Kingdoms. The Tradition builds up around people in fairy tale situations and uses its power to point them into storybook lives. But that often doesn’t turn out nicely for the people involved. The books about these people are clever and funny and anyone who’s ever enjoyed fairy tales will find great satisfaction out of seeing how the characters foil tradition.

Beauty and the Werewolf starts out as a Red Riding Hood variant. Bella is taking some gifts to Granny, the local herb witch. In this story, the woodsman is the villain, not a man Bella likes at all. But when she’s attacked in the night by a lone wolf, the next day she is taken to his manor. It turns out that he’s a werewolf who was supposed to be secluded during the full moon. Now Bella must wait in his palace to see if she will transform into a wolf as well. And, of course, now she’s playing out Beauty and the Beast.

One thing I like about these books is how she picks and chooses elements, and sometimes leaves out the unpleasant ones. Bella’s stepsisters are sweet, if flighty. She gets to see her father through a magic mirror, and it does provide comfort. We even find out the story behind the invisible servants eventually. Bella’s the one who immediately thinks to have them wear armbands so she can tell where they are. (Well, duh! Mercedes Lackey brings practical thinking to these fairy tales!)

Bella’s smart, independent, and enterprising. We’re not surprised when she doesn’t wait quietly to find out if she’s going to turn into a beast herself. She’s not one to let the Tradition push her around. Once again, this is thoroughly enjoyable reading.

Harlequin.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/beauty_and_the_werewolf.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Akata Witch, by Nnedi Okorafor

Akata Witch

by Nnedi Okorafor

Viking, 2011. 349 pages.
Starred Review

Here’s a fantasy tale of a young person discovering she has magic that is nothing like any other book I’ve read. Because this young lady, Sunny, lives in Nigeria.

Our main character explains herself:

My name is Sunny Nwazue and I confuse people.

I have two older brothers, like my parents, my brothers were both born here in Nigeria. Then my family moved to America, where I was born in the city of New York. When I was nine, we returned to Nigeria, near the town of Aba. My parents felt it would be a better place to raise my brothers and me, at least that’s what my mom says. We’re Igbo — that’s an ethnic group from Nigeria — so I’m American and Igbo, I guess.

You see why I confuse people? I’m Nigerian by blood, American by birth, and Nigerian again because I live here. I have West African features, like my mother, but while the rest of my family is dark brown, I’ve got light yellow hair, skin the color of “sour milk” (or so stupid people like to tell me), and hazel eyes that look like God ran out of the right color. I’m albino.

Then Sunny learns that she is a Leopard Person, a person with mystical abilities. She is a Free Agent, someone whose parents are not Leopard People, but are Lambs. And she runs across two other children from Leopard families who have also recently discovered their abilities.

If this sounds like Harry Potter’s world, the basic set-up is similar, with Leopard People instead of Wizards, Lambs instead of Muggles, and Free Agents instead of Muggle-born. Sunny and her friends must learn to use the magic and also to combat a powerful and evil Leopard Person who is carrying out ritual killings. But that’s where the similarity ends. The magic used is African magic and very different from the magic in Harry Potter’s world.

Though this book is complete and has a satisfying climax, it’s very much a beginning. Sunny finds things out about this new magical world she’s part of, and she has many questions about what it means for her life. This book provides a detailed and evocative set-up as well as being a gripping story by itself. I will snatch up any further adventures of Sunny and her friends as soon as they come out.

nnedi.com
penguin.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/akata_witch.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a book I got at ALA Annual Conference and had signed by the author.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.