I found Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor while wandering around Wicker Park in Chicago with some friends. We all needed a little break and decided to pop into a little cafe which turned out to be a cafe/bookstore. What I’m saying in that this was the shop of my dreams. Something about the coffee book combo just rings true to me. We started looking around and a employee approached us and recommended Akata Witch. Between his recommendation and the buzz I’d been hearing about it anyway (I believe the sequel just came out…or is due to come out soon) I couldn’t resist.
Akata Witch follows twelve year old Sunny Nwazue who is Nigerian by blood but was born in New York City and lives in Nigeria now. She’s also albino. Basically she’s got that outsider vibe that makes her a prime target for bullying in school. Until, that is, she finds out she is a free agent which means she has magical powers and has a lot of learning to do about those magical powers. Now, when Harry Potter was coming out I was always around the same age as the characters in the books…needless to say I’ve read the whole series one or two or fifteen times, but I don’t think you’d need to be a super fan to see the parallels between Akata Witch and Harry Potter. This doesn’t take away from the book at all but it was interesting to notice which moments stuck out to me while reading as classically Harry Potter moments. The moment that comes to mind is when Sunny is in a shop getting her juju knife, the parallel moment being, of course, when Harry is in a shop getting his wand.
Sometimes it is a little annoying to read books that sound so familiar to books I already love, but that really wasn’t the case with Akata Witch. There are plenty of differences, setting the story in Nigeria certainly sees to that, and upon reflection I think the similarities are superficial ones. Harry Potter was not the first coming of age story set in a magical world and nobody ever thought it would be the last. It was, however, incredibly influential and for many people it became their childhoods defining series. So any magical coming of age book is going to ring a little familiar, but the really good ones like Akata Witch will be rooted in a new and exciting story. I suspect that future books in the series will move away from the similarities I was noticing because Nnedi Okorafor has set up a fantastic and fascinating world for the reader to discover with Sunny.
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