Akata witch

Format:

Book

Title:

Akata witch

Author:

Okorafor, Nnedi.

ISBN:

9780670011964

9780142420911

Publication Information:

New York : Viking, 2011.

Physical Description:

349 pages ; 22 cm

Series title(s):

Nsibidi scripts series ;

Number in series:

General Note:

"A Junior Library Guild selection."--Jacket flap

Contents:

Prologue: The candle -- Orlu -- Chichi -- Initiative -- Leopard knocks his foot -- Sunny day -- The skull -- Night runner forest -- Red stew and rice -- Treetop -- Facing reality -- Lessons -- Abuja -- Zuma Rock -- The football cup -- Hold your breath -- Trouble at home -- Basic juju -- Seven rainy days -- Under the hat -- I see you -- Timing -- Headless and headlines -- Epilogue.

Summary:

Twelve-year-old Sunny Nwazue, an American-born albino child of Nigerian parents, 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.

Program Information:

Accelerated Reader AR MG+ 10.0 Quiz 143032.

Accelerated Reader Level 4.2.

Reading Counts RC 6-8 4.3 17 Quiz: 53175.

Personal Subject:

Okorafor, Nnedi. Akata witch-1.

Subject(s):

Paranormal fiction.

Magic -- Juvenile fiction.

Albinism -- Juvenile fiction.

Serial murderers -- Juvenile fiction.

Moving, Household -- Juvenile fiction.

Friendship -- Juvenile fiction.

Witches -- Juvenile fiction.

Fantasy -- Juvenile fiction.

Supernatural -- Fiction.

Magic -- Fiction.

Albinos and albinism -- Fiction.

Serial murderers -- Fiction.

Nigeria -- Juvenile fiction.

Nigeria -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

Nigeria -- Juvenile fiction.

Genre:

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Woodburn Public Library	Okarafor-Mbachu	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde Library	YA FIC OKO	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Dallas Public Library	YA Okorafor, N. Akata	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Dayton Public Library	YA OKORAFOR	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Independence Public Library	YA FICTION - OKORAFOR 2	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Lyons Public Library	SF OKORAFOR	Searching... Unknown
Searching... McMinnville Public Library	Okorafor, N.	Searching... Unknown
Searching... McMinnville Public Library	Okorafor, N.	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Mount Angel Public Library	YA OKORAFOR, N. Akata Witch #1	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Newberg Public Library	TEEN OKORAFOR	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Newberg Public Library	TEEN OKORAFOR	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Salem Main Library	TEEN Okorafor, N.	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Salem Main Library	TEEN FICTION Okorafor-Mbachu, N.	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Silver Falls Library	YA OKORAFOR	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Stayton Public Library	JF OKORAFOR	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Willamina Public Library	YA Okorafor, N.	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Affectionately dubbed "the Nigerian Harry Potter," Akata Witch weaves together a heart-pounding tale of magic, mystery, and finding one's place in the world.

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?

Ursula K. Le Guin and John Green are Nnedi Okorafor fans. As soon as you start reading Akata Witch , you will be, too!

Author Notes

Nnedi Okorafor was born on April 8, 1974 in Cincinnati, Ohio. She is a graduate of Clarion Writers Workshop in Lansing, Michigan and earned her PhD in English from the University of Illinois. Currently she is an associate professor of creative writing and literature at the University at Buffalo (SUNY).

Her awards include a 2001 Hurston-Wright literary award for her story Amphibious Green, The Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa for Zahrah the Windseeker, the Carl Brandon Parallax Award for The Shadow Speaker, the 2007-08 winner of the Macmillan Writer's Prize for Africa for Long Juju Man, the 2011 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel for Who Fears Death, and her science fiction novella Binti won the 2016 Nebula Award (Best Novella) and the 2016 Hugo Awards for Best Novella.

(Bowker Author Biography)

Reviews (5)

School Library Journal Review

Gr 6 Up-This contemporary fantasy features Sunny, 12, Nigerian by blood but born in New York City, who's been living in Nigeria since she was 9. She has West African features but is an albino with yellow hair, white skin, and hazel eyes. This mixture confuses people, and she is teased and bullied by classmates. One day while looking into a candle flame, she sees a vision of the end of the world. She discovers that her classmate Orlu; his friend Chichi; and Sasha, newly arrived from America, all have magical abilities, and they suspect that she does, too. She finds out she's of the Leopard spirit line and has the ability to cross over into the spirit world, become invisible, see the future, and manipulate time. She and her new friends must use their abilities to try to defeat a serial killer who's maiming and killing children to use to awaken a monster from the spirit world. This vividly imagined, original fantasy shows what life is like in today's Nigeria, while it beautifully explores an alternate magical reality. Sunny must deal with cultural stereotypes, a strict father who resents her being female, and older brothers who pick on her because she's better at soccer than they are. This is a consistently surprising, inventive read that will appeal to more thoughtful, patient fantasy readers because it relies less on action and more on exploring the characters' gradual mastery of their talents.-Sharon Rawlins, New Jersey State Library, Trenton (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publisher's Weekly Review

Okorafor (The Shadow Speaker) returns with another successful tale of African magic. Although 12-year-old Sunny is Nigerian, she was born in America, and her Nigerian classmates see her as an outsider. Worse, she's an albino, an obvious target for bullies and suspected of being a ghost or a witch. Things change, however, when she has a vision of impending nuclear war. Then her classmate Orlu and his friend Chichi turn out to be Leopard People-witches-and insist that she is, too. Soon Sunny discovers her spirit face ("It was her, but it felt as if it had its own separate identity, too. Her spirit face was the sun, all shiny gold and glowing with pointy rays"). Eventually, the three and an American boy named Sasha visit the dangerous, magical city of Leopard Knocks and learn from their mentors in witchcraft that they must destroy Black Hat Otokoto, a monstrous serial killer and powerful witch. Although a bit slow getting started, this tale is filled with marvels and is sure to appeal to teens whose interest in fantasy goes beyond dwarves and fairies. Ages 12-up. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Horn Book Review

Sunny is an American born to two Nigerian parents, now living in Nigeria. As an albino, she's used to people staring and calling her a witch, but even so, it's a surprise to learn she is a witch, one of the Leopard People who have the power to work juju. Along with her coven -- quiet Orlu, who can undo juju workings; brash Sasha, sent from America as a punishment for summoning spirits against his sister's harassers in the projects; and sassy Chichi, whose confidence in her own abilities is unrivaled -- Sunny learns to call forth her spirit face and other beginner workings, but a greater challenge is waiting. The coven was assembled by the elders to take on Okotoko the Black Hat, a Leopard serial killer who preys on children. If readers detect echoes of Harry Potter in Sunny's discovery of and development of her powers, they are faint and distant -- Sunny's world of pepper soup, afrobeat music, and canings as a form of punishment is vastly different from tired wands and broomsticks. Sunny's albinism is an integral part of her powers, giving her a foot in two worlds and rescuing the device from sensationalism. Although the battle with the Black Hat seems anticlimactic following a much more character-driven confrontation with fellow students, the audacious personalities, the depiction of a culture with an old tradition of magic that is nonetheless unfamiliar to most Western readers, and Okorafor's uncomplicated, lively writing make this new fantasy offering stand out. anita l. burkam (c) Copyright 2011. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Review

Who can't love a story about a Nigerian-American 12-year-old with albinism who discovers latent magical abilities and saves the world? Sunny lives in Nigeria after spending the first nine years of her life in New York. She can't play soccer with the boys because, as she says, "being albino made the sun my enemy," and she has only enemies at school. When a boy in her class, Orlu, rescues her from a beating, Sunny is drawn in to a magical world she's never known existed. Sunny, it seems, is a Leopard person, one of the magical folk who live in a world mostly populated by ignorant Lambs. Now she spends the day in mundane Lamb school and sneaks out at night to learn magic with her cadre of Leopard friends: a handsome American bad boy, an arrogant girl who is Orlu's childhood friend and Orlu himself. Though Sunny's initiative is thinshe is pushed into most of her choices by her friends and by Leopard adultsthe worldbuilding for Leopard society is stellar, packed with details that will enthrall readers bored with the same old magical worlds. Meanwhile, those looking for a touch of the familiar will find it in Sunny's biggest victories, which are entirely non-magical (the detailed dynamism of Sunny's soccer match is more thrilling than her magical world saving). Ebulliently original. (Fantasy. 11-13)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

Flame has always been soothing to 12-year-old Sunny until she sees a vision of the end of the world in candlelight. Raging fires, boiling oceans and ruptured land, dead and dying people. It was horrible. And it was coming. Born in the U.S. to Nigerian parents, Sunny and her family have returned to Nigeria, where she is taunted for being both foreign-born and albino. Then Sunny learns that her classmates' jeers that she i. half-ghost, half-huma. hold truth: she is a Free Agent, descended from both Leopard People, who have magical abilities, and Lambs, who are equivalent to J. K. Rowling's dull Muggles. Along with three other Leopard kids, Sunny has been chosen to help stop a serial killer whose dark juju depends on sacrificing children and links to her apocalyptic vision. The story's pacing isn't consistently smooth, but the world Okorafor creates is spellbinding, from its fantastical plants and animals, including sculpture-buildin. wasp artist. and forceful lightning bugs ( the ones with attitude have the best light ), to its values, which are refreshing inversions of Lamb beliefs: money is earne. by gaining knowledge and wisdom. for example. Harry Potter fans will find plenty of satisfying parallels here, as will readers who know Okorafor's previous novels, especially The Shadow Speaker (2007), for which Akata Witch serves as a prequel of sorts. Okorafor's high-spirited characters, sly humor, archetypal themes, and inventive reworking of coming-of-age journeys will leave readers eager for this series starter's planned sequels. For more about Okorafor and her imagined worlds, see the accompanyin. Story behind the Stor. feature.--Engberg, Gillia. Copyright 2010 Booklist