Love That Book!

Book Review: Akata Witch,* by Nnedi Okorafor, published April 14, 2011, 384 pages (Kindle edition), Lexile 590, recommended for grades 7-10 or ages 12-16. Please note: while this book is in the Pageturner library for one class, student requests will be needed for additional purchases.

 This novel, narrated in third person but most often reflecting the protagonist’s POV, has been called “the Nigerian Harry Potter.”  I decided to read it in celebration of Halloween. !2-year old Sunny Nwazue was born in New York and lived there with her mother, father, and two brothers for nine years before they emigrated to Nigeria, where both her parents were born.  They are Igbo, and Sunny has mastered the language; she is a top student at her school, although brutally mistreated by some of her classmates, including an aggressively physical girl much bigger than she is. 

Her mother is a doctor and her father, an attorney.  Her father and brothers are arrogant and often violent toward her; her mother watches out for her ‘out in the world’ but is largely passive within the family dynamic. In her new home, Sunny is called “akata,” a derogatory slang term in Igbo for a Black American transplant.  Moreover, Sunny has albinism (1); she describes herself as having typically Black facial features but white skin and hazel eyes.  A naturally gifted athlete with quick feet, she is extremely sun-sensitive and only gets to play at soccer, her favorite game, with her brothers, and only after sunset—when invited. During the day, whenever she is outdoors she must shield herself with a black umbrella.  In short, Sunny is an outcast in every way imaginable; in every arena, she never feels completely safe.

Her one friend at school is a quiet, thoughtful teen named Orlu, who’s neck-in-neck with her for top grades in their class.  After Orlu speaks out to defend Sunny from their classmates, he introduces Sunny to his lifelong childhood friend, Chichi, a confidently brash girl who loves pushing boundaries. Chichi promptly intuits that Sunny, too, belongs to their hidden, magical society and takes Sunny under her wing, introducing her to her own mom, Nimm, for confirmation.  Sunny is astonished and vaguely disapproving to hear Chichi call her mother “Nimm,” as she calls her own mother “ma.” At first it seems disrespectful, but she’ll learn this very day that appearances can be—and most often are—deceiving, for Nimm is the honorific of a priestess in the magical world of Leopards, and she is “’One of the last princesses in the Queen Nsedu spiritline.’” With Nimm’s blessing, she and Orlu reveal they are Leopard people, possessed of significant otherworldly abilities: his is in undoing bad juju, hers is in remembering all she sees.  Chichi is also a trickster, like Loki in Norse mythology, or the Coyote in indigenous lore. (2)  

The very next day, they take Sunny to meet their teacher, Anatov—also an American transplant.  There they meet Sasha, a 14-year old boy whose fashion sense is purely American. He speaks no Igbo.  Of the four, Sasha of course most vividly represents both individualism over collective conscience and naïve idealism.  He’s been sent to live with Orlu’s family after misusing juju in the states, escalating to harm some guys who’d spoken trash about his sister; he has a high sense of honor and is quick to use violence to protect it, whether the usual kind or the magical kind.  He comes to West Africa with scars on his back from being caned for the violation, but punishment hasn’t dampened his quick temper one iota. Sasha has a photographic memory, as does Chichi, who “...can read a thousand books and remember what’s in all of them.”

Together, Sunny, Orlu, Chichi and Sasha are a natural Oha coven.  Before the end of this novel, Chichi and Sasha will be involved romantically. (SPOILER ALERT: Look forward to Akata Warrior for Sunny and Orlu to develop similarly.)  Orlu defines some of the differences between Sunny’s former world and her new one

 “’Leopard People—all our kind all over the world—are not like Lambs. Lambs think money and material things are the most important thing in the world. You can cheat, lie, steal, kill, be dumb as a rock, but if you can brag about money and having lots of things and your bragging is true, that bypasses everything. Money and material things make you king or queen of the Lamb world. You can do no wrong, you can do anything. “Leopard People are different...Knowledge is the center of all things. The Head Librarian of the Obi Library of Leopard Knocks is the keeper of the greatest stock of knowledge in West Africa.’ Orlu sat back. ‘One day, we’ll take you to the Obi Library. You’ll see.’ ‘Wow,’ Sunny said. ‘I like that.’”

Sunny is the only one of the four to ask pointed questions.  She’s often exasperated by the entire Leopard cosmos and thinks it’s all crazy.  But she is also driven by a need to belong, and as one of the Oha coven she’s discovered a new family. Not only that, but she finds she has acquired resistance to the burning sun!

“The sunshine felt like a warm friend, not an angry enemy. She didn’t need her umbrella anymore. ‘Oh my goodness,” she whispered. ‘I can play soccer!’ Realizing what she was was the beginning of something, all right . . . but it was also the end of something else.”  This change is welcome—others, not so much.  It infuriates Sunny to learn that their Leopard teachers are unconcerned that they may all die battling evil.  Their take is that everybody dies, the world goes on, it’s the world that counts, and dying for a good cause is, well, a good way to go, all in all. 

Each is given a mentor in addition to Anatov, who will continue their education as a coven.  Sunny wants the head of the library, an elderly woman named Sugar Cream, to be hers.  In a moment of rage, however, she shows her newly acquired spirit face to Jibaku, her tormentor at school, when Jibaku attacks her.  Right away a car appears and she must go to the library—for punishment.  There she sees Sugar Cream for the first time and realizes the woman has a severe S-shaped scoliosis, yet she moves with authority—I appreciated this because I have daughter with the same affliction.  It was inspiring for me to see this debilitating condition recognized but not displayed as a dominant or even truly significant feature of this great magician, keeper of all Leopard knowledge. As with albinism, people—mostly women—afflicted with this condition, are frequently subject to ridicule and abuse.  

Sugar Cream dresses Sunny down but good, although she spares her a flogging. As she dismisses her, Sugar Cream tells Sunny she is considering her as her tutee, but Sunny has made her decision both precarious and difficult.  Poor Sunny!  Although she had known nothing of the Leopard world and is a “free agent,” both joined and disconnected, she knows very little about all the arcane rules by which she must now abide.

The coven’s assigned antagonist will be Black Hat, as Sunny reads about him in the Leopard news daily:

“BLACK HAT DOES IT AGAIN YOUNG BOY FOUND WANDERING MARKET WITH EYES GOUGED OUT 

A seven-year-old boy from Aba who’d been kidnapped ten days ago was found wandering aimlessly through the Ariaria market. Both of his eyes had been brutally removed. The wounds were cauterized. A black hat symbol was drawn on his right arm with a dye that doctors are finding impossible to remove. This is the known symbol of the ritual murderer Black Hat Otokoto. Ahmed Mohammed, 45, found the boy and immediately called the authorities and took him to the hospital. “At first I was not sure if the boy was some sort of evil spirit,” Mohammed said. The boy is the seventeenth Black Hat victim. He is only the fourth to be found alive. All of Black Hat’s victims have been children under the age of sixteen. Ritual sacrifices and occult activities have long been a problem in Nigeria, but never has Igboland had a serial ritual killer like this.”  

So the coven learns about their assignment, and Black Hat’s origins.:

“Years before you all were born, Otokoto Ginny passed the last level. He was thirty-four years old, a year older than I was. He shouldn’t have been allowed to even take the test.” Taiwo [another Leopard tutor] sucked her teeth in annoyance. “He passed, but he was never fit to be a scholar. His hunger for wealth and power were as strong as his hunger for chittim [Leopard monies that suddenly appear as magicians do good]. Otokoto had the biggest appetite for these things. I don’t know what was wrong with him. He has to be stopped, not just for the sake of the children he is drawing from but for the world. This is the job we are giving to you four.”

What is not revealed at this time: Sunny’s grandmother had not only been a Leopard, unknown even to Sunny’s mom, but she had also mentored this evil magician. Sunny’s mother only knows her mother died under suspicious circumstances—in truth, Black Hat had murdered her.  And it will turn out that the very day they must confront Black Hat is also the anniversary of her grandmother’s death.

“[Black Hat] had greater aspirations than financial wealth, just as he sought more than just chittim. He wanted power. That remains his greatest hunger, and his hunger has opened him up to terrible powers of the earth. There is a forbidden juju, a black juju. It is old and secret. He had only part of the juju and needed the book he stole from the library for the rest. The juju is to bring the head of the centipede through—Ekwensu.”  By centipede, this teacher means that Black Hat has a following of corrupt magicians behind him. At the start of the novel, Sunny, absorbed by the light of a candle, has seen the apocalypse, a nuclear end of the world. This is what Black Hat wants.  

Ekwensu is the Nigerian Satan, although she is female. She is a form of masquerade, beings from the other world who can be summoned into the physical plane. They first appear from suddenly developing huge termite mounds, from which they emerge as a species of chaos.  At a party, Chichi had called one forth, thinking she could handle it—but she couldn’t, and Orlu had to undo her juju.  She will be caned for this.  During this same Leopard festival, Sunny gets to compete in an actual soccer tournament.  She is great and feels her power., although her green team loses by a single point.  She’s assured a spot next year. But I digress.

If Ekwensu is allowed to come through, she will establish an evil empire, cause nuclear destruction, and make another world.  Black Hat has the last two victims now, a boy and girl just three and two years old, whose innate power will be the last required.

“’What’s expected of you four is simple,” Abok [another formidable magician on a sort of board of directors] said. ‘Two children have been taken. It happened two hours ago. Your job is to bring them back safely to their parents. ‘This rain is no coincidence. It is sent by Ekwensu. The thunder and the lightning and the water cleanse the atmosphere in preparation for Ekwensu’s arrival. It’s like rolling out the red carpet for a great queen. You see all the leaks? No natural rain could penetrate library walls.’”

Sasha rushes in and is badly hurt but provides a distraction for Sunny and Orlu to retrieve the children, who are already dead as they lay them aside from the melée.  Chichi performs a potent juju from her mother, who got it just last night from Sunny’s deceased grandmother. It slows Black Hat  but doesn’t stop him.  “You can kill me,’ he said, his voice gurgling. He coughed wetly and laughed again. ‘I am but a vessel! You’re too late!’” Sure enough, her termite mound begins to grow as he slices his own throat.  When she emerges, she is 100’ high and 50’ wide; she creates a deafening THOOM THOOM THOOM drumbeat, then a crooning song, wild and agonizing, accompanies her. Sunny leaves the children to Orlu and confronts Ekwensu.  For the first time, Sunny is completely unafraid:

“Ekwensu howled and began to spin again, faster than before. Sunny knew she had only one word to speak. She spoke it in a language she didn’t even know existed. “Return,” she said. Ekwensu shrieked and lashed out several fronds and smacked her to the side. She flew back, hitting a tree. Ekwensu whirled faster. But no matter how fast Ekwensu spun, she was sinking. Sunny struggled to her feet. As she watched Ekwensu sink, she was reminded of the Wicked Witch of the West’s death in The Wizard of Oz. Ekwensu wasn’t melting, but she looked like she was, as she sank into the wet, red mud. Gone. ‘Good,’ Sunny whispered.”

On the grassy verge where they’d lain the children, both are breathing! Orlu, however, is unconscious.  Sunny resuscitates him, the children are returned unharmed to their respective families, and after Sunny’s spectacular juju, Sugar Cream accepts to mentor her. Sunny gets her eyes checked and gets prescription glasses.

But our tale has not yet ended. Sugar Cream next requires Sunny to make magical Tainted Pepper Soup, and Sunny goes off to pick tainted peppers.  While in the fae land of Leopard Knocks, there’s suddenly a lake where none had been moments before, and tentacles wrap around her legs, drawing her toward the water. Since swimming had been a daytime activity, Sunny hadn’t really learned how.  Luckily, she is saved by a mermaid-looking creature.  Back with Sugar Cream, who’s bought the needed tainted peppers, the soup is made. Sugar Cream isn’t bothered by Sunny’s latest harrowing experience:

“’You’re fine,’ Sugar Cream said with a wave of a hand. ‘You met the lake beast, cousin of the river beast. I don’t know why it tried to eat you, though.’ Sunny felt dizzy as her attention split between trying to figure out what was on her head and processing the fact that the river beast had relatives. ‘The river beast has family?”’Sunny asked. ‘Doesn’t everything?’”

 “'Is there something on my head?' Sunny whispered, working hard not to drop her bowl. She wanted to ask if it was a spider [Sugar Cream keeps venomous red spiders], but she didn’t want to irritate her mentor any more than she already had by nearly dying. “It’s a comb,” Sugar Cream said...‘Keep it well,’ Sugar Cream said. ‘And if I were you, I’d not cut my hair anytime soon, either. Ogbuide [the lake spirit] probably expects you to have hair that can hold that comb. Also, buy something nice and shiny and go to a real lake or pond or the beach and throw it in. She’ll catch it.’”  

The End.  HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
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*THIS BOOK IS ONE OF TWO IN A SERIES: 1) Akata Witch and 2) Akata Warrior.  Akata Witch was nominated for the Andre Norton Nebula Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction in 2011. Locus Awards: 2012: Akata Witch (Viking) — young adult book — 3rd place.  Among the author’s other novels, “Major Awards: 6, Locus Awards: 1, Other Awards: 4, Total Number of Award Wins and Nominations: 51. Akata Warrior has won even more accolades than Akata Witch.

(1) ABOUT ALBINISM “Albinism (pronounced: AL-beh-niz-im) that affects the skin, hair, and eyes is called oculocutaneous (pronounced: ok-yuh-low-kyu-TAY-nee-iss) albinism. This leads to skin, hair, and eyes that are lighter than you would expect based on someone’s ethnic background or race. Symptoms vary based on how much melanin someone makes. A person with albinism has insufficient melanin.

“Signs and symptoms include: pale skin, hair that is very light blonde, brown, or reddish, eyes that are pink, light blue, green, gray, or light brown, eyes that are sensitive to light, a “lazy eye” (called strabismus), back and forth movement of the eyes (called nystagmus), and vision problems. 

“What Causes Albinism? Most of the time, someone has albinism because they inherited the gene for it from both their mother and father. Having just one of the genes (being a “carrier") does not give you albinism. Most parents of children with albinism do not have any symptoms. Sometimes, albinism is caused by a new gene change (called a mutation).  Because the social scene can be more about fitting in than standing out, people with albinism may face bullying or prejudice. Voicing any frustration or sadness to a family member or friend who understands can help. So can talking to a counselor or therapist to get ideas on coping with any challenges.” Excerpt: https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/albinism.html 

“Melanin is a complex polymer derived from the amino acid tyrosine. Melanin is responsible for determining skin and hair colour and is present in the skin to varying degrees, depending on how much a population has been exposed to the sun historically.” This site explains the biosynthesis of melanin:
 https://www.news-medical.net/health/What-is-Melanin.aspx 

(2) A BRIEF OUTLINE OF NATIVE TRICKSTER MYTHS: SATIRE

“The trickster is the embodiment of lawlessness and paradox. He is a divine buffoon, a hero who breaks taboos, a rebel, a coward, and a creator. Trickster helps establish social rules, and he deliberately flouts them. He is commonly depicted as deceitful and humorous.”  

Trickster myths are native satire, which is defined as “the use of humor or exaggeration in order to show how foolish or wicked some people's behavior or ideas are.”  It is most often used to deride a lifestyle, policies, or poor behavior considered endemic in its society. A tradition dating far back to ancient Rome, it was widely used throughout the Renaissance and the Age of Reason.  https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/satire

“[The trickster]... is amoral, rather than immoral, and he has a voracious appetite for food and sex. In his traditional and mythic incarnations, he is almost always male. As the supreme boundary crosser, trickster is always between classifications– between what is human and what is animal, between what is cultural and what is natural. Native American tricksters tend to be associated with animal spirits (such as Coyote, Rabbit, or Raven). Their tales are both sacred myths and simple folk tales. Among the Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains, the trickster's name is Old Man (Crow and Blackfoot), Iktomi (Lakota), and Veeho (Cheyenne). The most common incarnation of the Plains trickster, however, is Coyote.

“In his various (and strikingly similar) cultural guises, trickster is the self-indulgent clown who dupes women into having sex with him; he steals food from his industrious neighbors; he cross-dresses and becomes temporarily a woman; he dies and is reborn. As expected, his tomfoolery frequently backfires. He juggles his eyes and loses them in a tree; he accidentally sleeps with his wife; he drowns in his own feces; he uses his enormous penis to attack a chipmunk (who in turns bites his penis off to "human" size). Further, trickster is a cultural hero. In some narratives, he creates the Earth; he creates animals or substantially alters their bodies; he steals tobacco from the gods; and, more recently, he tricks the white man.

“Symbolically, the trickster is always located at the periphery of the community (though, importantly, never totally separated from it). From this "outer" vantage point, trickster reveals "inner" communal structures. His very presence determines the limits of social boundaries. Trickster thus serves as a political tool with which to subvert (or endorse) social practices. Indeed, trickster continually offers us the possibility of transcending (or renewing) social codes. As such, trickster is arguably an incarnation of creativity itself. At the very least, trickster allows us to poke fun at the powers that restrain us. He reveals the structure of social structures and offers us glimpses of new (and terrifying) world orders. Not surprisingly, many contemporary authors use tricksterlike characters as creative forces that both define and critique dominant cultural practices.

Ultimately, the trickster is disturbing, not because of his difference but because of his lack of difference. As purely a cultural construct, the trickster's body is a cultural body–our body. He is always a part of us, and he exists only to be interpreted. And when we interpret trickster, we interpret ourselves. Even though we often attempt to alienate ourselves from the trickster–by making his body grotesque, indistinguishable–wherever we are, there is trickster, laughing at what we've become.”  Excerpt: http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.fol.044

MODERN AMERICAN TRICKSTER NOVELS: “Tricksters break social rules, leaving society to remake them. This thesis examines the works of American Humorists Tom Robbins and Edward Abbey, particularly Still Life with Woodpecker and The Monkey Wrench Gang, arguing that these authors are contemporary trickster figures whose work not only entertains their audience but through their rule breaking offers them new possibilities in dealing with the unresolved conflicts American society is wrestling with in the last quarter of the twentieth century and beyond.” https://commons.und.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2579&context=theses     

The most famous trickster in Black American tradition is known to most from childhood: B’rer Rabbit.

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