Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi is the sometimes haunting and always beautiful Afrofuturist fantasy about Zélie’s quest to restore magic. Out of fear and hatred for magic, the king destroyed diviners’ and majis’ connection to magic, leaving them powerless. Even though magic has been ripped away from them, Zélie and all other diviners are hated for their potential to wield magic, a potential that is impossible to hide with the tell-tale white hair all diviners have. The discrimination is inescapable and each day Zélie’s brother and father worry she will be violently killed like her maji mother. Zélie’s already chaotic life explodes when the rouge princess Amari crashes into her carrying a scroll with the ability to awaken magic in diviners. With that fateful meeting, the quest to bring back magic begins, but it’s a quest that demands everything Zélie has.
My little introduction here does no justice to the emotional relationships and traumatic experiences that make this book one that demands your heart’s engagement. It is a YA book that belongs in the hands of every young adult and “real” adult. “Commoners” Zélie and Tzain and princess and prince Amari and Inan are the height of complex and genuine sibling relationships. Their concern for each other develops in ways that richly reflect the difficult reality of familial love. The romantic relationships that form between the two families are similarly complex and exciting. These characters arise from a world that, while slightly different from the Africa we know with its horned lions and the presence of magic, unites fantasy with mythology, tradition, and real life. For an excellent interview with the author regarding black representation in YA literature: https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/6/5/17417604/tomi-adeyemi-interview-children-of-blood-and-bone Also, they’re making a movie.
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