Zahrah the Windseeker

So very charming!! A world where you grow your own computer from a seed, and everyone lives in crazy skyscraper plants, and there is a Forbidden Greeny Jungle and lovely intelligent gorillas and a transparent library grown from a glass plant...I so want there to be a movie of this.
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Apparently good enough to read in one sitting, but not good enough for me to really care why. The alternate-universeness of this is delightful, but gets a little precious by the end, especially all the weird flora and fauna in the Forbidden Greeny Jungle. I'm especially irritated by the talking animals, which strikes me as awkwardly patched on top of the world-building. I love the concept of a world that runs on plants for currency and power, but question why, in that case, the jungle is so foreign; the obvious answer is that scale matters, that domesticated flora is okay but wild is not, but I didn't see that come through in the text.

I'll be interested in seeing what else Okorafor publishes -- this shows promise of imagination, and the last scenes are begging for a sequel. ( )

On a planet where technology and plants have merged, Zahrah is dada—born with vines in her hair—which is a somewhat disreputable thing to be. Then, at thirteen, she starts to float, and when her best friend convinces her to enter the forbidden forest, she has to save him from mortal danger. It was a wittily designed world, though I was expecting YA based on my own misunderstanding and got something younger than that; I will probably suggest it to my kids in a few years. ( )

This was my second Okorafor book and I actually liked this one even more than Akata Witch. Zahrah is a truly wonderful character and I absolutely love the world that Okarofor has created. This is a true fantasy novel, in every way, and I just want to read and reread it. I love the fact that it's a plant-based society, that it mirrors our own and yet is completely different. I loved the different characters -- especially Zahrah's best friend and the gorillas who Zahrah runs into while in the forest. I cannot wait to read more of Okorafor's work, especially if they're all this good. ( )

Zahrah the Windseeker is young adult novel by Nnedi Okorafor.

Plot:
Zahrah is dada. Mostly that means that there are flowers growing in her hair and that people look at her weirdly – but dada people are also rumored to have special powers. But nobody is more suprised than Zahrah when that turns out to be true and she starts to fly. With the help of her best friend Dari she starts to explore her abilities in secret – in the Forbidden Jungle. But when Dari is bitten by a snake, it’s up to Zahrah to seek out a elgort egg, the one thing that might save his life.

Zahrah the Windseeker has a nice coming of age story with a sweet message. But it’s really the setting that makes this book special and fascinating. For one thing, it’s set in an African world, which is rare and interesting by itself. But the marriage between nature and technology (there are CPU plants. How awesome is that?) is amazingly perfect.

Read more on my blog: http://kalafudra.wordpress.com/2011/06/04/zahrah-the-windseeker-nnedi-okorafor/ ( )