Akata Witch
SynopsisPlot
Twelve-year-old Sunny lives in Nigeria, but she was born American. Her features are African, but she's albino. She's a terrific athlete, but can't go out into the sun to play soccer. There seems to be no place where she fits in. And then she discovers something amazing—she is a "free agent" with latent magical power. Soon she's part of a quartet of magic students, studying the visible and invisible, learning to change reality. But will it be enough to help them when they are asked to catch a career criminal who knows magic too?
Story
About this book
Sunny Nwazue is twelve years old, albino, and caught between two countries. Born in the United States to Nigerian parents, she has moved with her family to southeastern Nigeria, where she stands out in ways she cannot control. Her pale skin makes outdoor sports painful, and her American upbringing sets her apart from classmates. She does not quite belong in either place.
Then Sunny discovers she is what her world calls a free agent, a person born with hidden magical ability outside any known magical lineage. She joins three other young students who share this status, and together they begin learning how to perceive and reshape layers of reality that most people never notice. Their education draws on a system of knowledge rooted in West African traditions rather than European ones, with its own rules, hierarchies, and dangers. The group is eventually called on to confront a criminal whose own command of magic makes him a serious threat.
Nnedi Okofor sets the story in a recognizable modern Nigeria, with its school uniforms, market streets, and family expectations, then layers a parallel magical society on top of it. The book is the first in a series that continues with Akata Warrior.
