Akata Witch

Akata Witch’s strength is its setting: a fully-realised, diverse magical community in Nigeria, the hub of a wider African magical world. Instead of wands, practitioners carry juju knives; characters come from a range of different African ethnic and linguistic groups. Nnedi Okorafor’s magical-realist world-building is fantastic, and the aspect of this book which I enjoyed most.

It’s possible that the book would work better on the whole for its intended audience (young adult) than it did for me, though. The pacing is off, the four main characters act more like 16 or 17 year olds than they do prepubescent 12 year olds, and there are wild tonal shifts and odd emotional responses (or to be more precise, a lack of emotional response) show more which are just jarring. Major things happen to all the child characters but with no real sense of emotional consequence, and I really didn’t like the implications of magic “fixing” Sunny’s albinism. That’s tapping into an ugly trope about disability in fiction. show less

I loved this book so much.

I was trying to describe this to a friend, and I think I used the words, "like Harry Potter but in Nigeria," which I guess was kind of true but also an incredible disservice to Okorafor's amazing world-building and story-telling, which should never be implied as being inferior to or copying another work. But for somebody who has not read much non-Western based speculative fiction, that was the easiest way to describe it (both for me and for my friend).

This book defied categorization - the age of the protagonist should have put this book in the middle-grade category or at least young adult, but the complexity of the plot and it's exploration of some darker themes involving serial killers, combat to the death, show more and even a brief mention of cannibalism made me think I was reading an adult fantasy, and I had to keep reminding myself that the main characters were ages twelve to fourteen.

It's hard to put into words just how much I loved this book. I read it in one exhausting day of traveling from DC to Des Moines, and I read the majority of it in the air between DC and Chicago and in Chicago Midway Airport. The story was so incredibly compelling that I was able to block out the plane full of middle-schoolers (as an aside -- Really, universe? Really? What did I do to make me deserve that?) and a noisy airport to be completely transported to Nigeria, with a hidden magical society and a serial killer intent on raising an ancient evil to reshape the world.

Recommended for all fantasy readers. show less

Excellent, excellent book! This is only the second series that I’ve read which explores African magic, and unsurprisingly I’m totally hooked. There’s lots of similarities with other cultural magic systems (magic is magic, and it’s semantics that differentiate them), but it’s still interesting getting to learn about how sorcerers from other cultures harness and use their magic. In this story, our protagonist Sunny discovers that she is one of the magical people of Africa - a Leopard Person - and embarks on a journey with a group of newfound friends to discover her magic. Little does Sunny know at the outset of this journey, but she and her friends are destined to confront and take down the generation’s most dangerous and evil show more magician who has remained undefeated for years and is putting the whole magical community (and the world) in danger. While we’ve seen this storytelling trope before in many tales of youthful self/magical discovery, Okorafor has created highly developed characters, set up the bones for a magical world ripe for exploration, and gives us just enough sparkle throughout the story to keep us hooked until the very end. With our protagonist, she has also created a character who is one in a million, as Sunny grapples with many challenges which set her outside her community - she’s African, but born in America; she’s a girl, but refuses not to challenge the boys in the traditional African patriarchal society; and she’s Albino, which sets her apart even amongst her magical community for her ability to walk between worlds. Her ancestral magic, which skipped a generation from her grandmother, is also extremely intriguing, as we barely touched on some of these abilities which hint to a greater innate power than many of the Leopard People, which is specifically linked to her ties to the spirit world. This series only has one more book, so I can’t wait to find out where Sunny will go next in her journey of magical discovery. show less

Nnedi Okorafor’s Akata Witch focuses on twelve-year-old Sunny Nwazue, an albino Nigerian-American girl who discovers that she possesses magical abilities. This opens the door to a world she never knew existed, in which she is a “free agent” living among the Leopard People’s magical community in West Africa. Together with her friends – Orlu, who attends a non-magical school with her; the mysterious Chichi, who lives with her mother and has more books than anyone Sunny knows; and Sasha, an American sent to Nigeria to learn some responsibility after abusing his powers back home – she learns the world from their teacher, Anatov. As they progress through their lessons and bond as a group, the leaders of the magical community show more inform the four that they must fight a dangerous sorcerer to prevent the end of the world, which Sunny has seen in the flame of a candle.

Okorafor takes the usual tropes of students learning magic in a world bigger than they’d imagined and strips away the perfect protagonists and generic monsters. Each of her characters begins the story with their own personal baggage. The best they can hope for is to make peace with it so they may grow as people. She also offers an empowering lesson about viewing the things that make people different – their flaws, quirks, and foibles – as the source of their abilities. Further, while many stories about magic children feature wunderkinds who instantly master each subject, Sunny, Orlu, Chichi, and Sasha must work to learn most of their subjects beyond those few that come innately. The repeated motif of libraries, both personal and institutional, drives home the importance of learning. At one point, Orlu says, “Leopard People are different. The only way you can earn chittim is by learning. The more you learn, the more chittim you earn. Knowledge is the center of all things” (pg. 82). Okorafor further developed this message in her Binti series. A must-read for fantasy fans! show less

Sunny Nwazue doesn't have the easiest life for a 12-year-old. Born to Nigerian parents, she was raised in the United States until she was 9 when her family decided to return to Nigeria. As if it's not hard enough to get used to a new culture, Sunny's albino and can't go a day without her peers tormenting her. And on the day this novel opens, she sees the end of the world while staring into a flame, revealing another difficult side of her nature. With the help of a few friends, she comes to understand and control her latent magical talents, and together they must join together to find Black Hat Otokoto, a serial killer in the region targetting young children.

Where to start? I absolutely ADORED this book--it was so exciting, endearing, show more and dangerous that I read it in two days. Nnedi Okorafor develops vivid and engaging characters against a rich setting. I assume she draws a lot of the novel from her experience as the daughter of two Igbo parents who raised her in the U.S. I loved Sunny, Orlu, Chichi, and Sasha and everyone in the Leopard community, and delighted in the moments when the spirit world manifested itself in the regular world. Okorafor incorporates juju so beautifully and seamlessly into this novel that I am hungry to learn more about the practice and culture behind it. Sunny proves to be a very strong female character, especially in light of the transition she makes from the world of Lambs to Leopards. I love the theme of acceptance within the Leopard community, which perceives a "flaw" (as labeled by the Lamb, or regular human world) to really be an asset from which to cultivate one's unique talents. In this way, the novel celebrates the outcasts of the world. It would appear that Akata Witch might be the first in a series, though it works well as a stand-alone novel. Okorafor has already written several novels so far--I will definitely read more of her!

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It's so fun to reread this portentous review as it led me to read ALL of Okorafor's books. And rereading Akata Witch was a pure joy...and much needed since my memory isn't what it used to be 😂😂 Cannot wait to dive into Akata Warrior and find out what wahala lurks! show less

Akata Witch is the story of twelve-year-old Sunny Nwazue, an American-born albino child of Nigerian parents, who moves with her family back to Nigeria, where she learns that she has latent magical powers which she and three similarly gifted friends use to catch a serial killer.

Nnedi Okorafor, author of the wonderful adult fantasy sci-fi novel Lagoon, creates a brilliantly distinctive world in this magical-realist synthesis of West African and American history and mythology. Fantasy fans will enjoy familiar themes in a new and original setting. Just like any young magician, Sunny must learn the rules of her magic and pay the price when she breaks them -- such as when she uses her "spirit face" to scare a bullying classmate. Readers might show more be tempted to compare the Leopard People’s magical village of Leopard Knocks to Diagon Alley and the Zuma Festival to the Quidditch World Cup, but beyond these surface similarities to the Harry Potter series, the world and society of the Leopard People is truly unique. This isn't a Nigerian Harry Potter story, as it has been dubbed by some., This is highly original stuff that draws on Okorafor's heritage (as she was born in the US to two Nigerian parents) to create a very fascinating story embedded in a sense of place. Okorafor never loses sight of the believable trials of her characters, conjuring a world in which magic doesn’t feel so far removed from the wonders and mysteries of growing up in our own world.

The novel may start slow but grows into quite an action packed and scary ride. Fans of world mythology, paranormal thrillers, & the works of Neil Gaiman and Ursula K. Le Guin will love this novel, because it shows just how close we are to a magical and dangerous reality. There's both good juju and bad juju out there. Be careful. show less

Okay, don't get me wrong. I can see what people see in this series. I don't know what I thought I'd expect considering I generally don't like fantasy, and I definitely don't like Harry Potter. It's just not my jam. In many ways, Akata Witch is very HP, just in Nigeria. In other ways, it's so steeped in African mythology, it's a true breath of fresh air from the normally very European folklore that fantasy so often draws from. It's definitely a book I'd recommend.