Keeping all these threads woven together in one unified story is both Sunny’s challenge and her author’s, and both accomplish their end with some enthralling feats of bravery and imagination.

She is (she finds out) a powerful witch, but this does not clarify her life: she is also a “free agent,” a rare type of spontaneously occurring witch who does not fit the typical bloodline transmission of magical powers.Īnd (yep, one other thing) she is part of the first pre-teen witch coven in West Africa with three other young people, but they all fight as much as they support another. Her parents are successful and educated, but her father is abusive. Sunny is smart and strong, but bullied regularly at school. She “has West African features” (she pointedly never uses the word “race,” a problematic term at best even outside the world of the book and doesn’t fit Sunny at all, which is part of the point), but is also albino, with light skin, hair and eyes. She is Igbo and lives in Nigeria, but was born and raised for most of her life in America. Sunny, the twelve-year-old female main character, embodies this liminal whirlwind: “My name is Sunny Nwazue and I confuse people” is one of the first things she says. The fact that your characters should and can speak several languages? The magical insects that sing you to sleep and create art out of cracker crumbs? It’s hard to know where to begin with a review of a book where so much is going on: the authentic, detailed reflection of Nigerian-American culture? The overt tackling of racism, ableism, and sexism in one narrative?

Akata witch book 3