Book review: 'Akata Witch' by Nnedi Okorafor

In this young-adult novel, Nigerian American girl teams with other tweens in West Africa to use supernatural powers to stop a serial killer.

*release date APRIL 14th, 2011*

Viking: 352 pp., $17.99, ages 12 and older

The protagonist at the center of the young-adult novel "Akata Witch" lives in many worlds. She is, in the truest sense, African American: Nigerian by ancestry, American by birth. Born in New York, she moved to West Africa with her parents and brothers when she was 9.

But Sunny Nwazue is also albino, with skin the color of "sour milk" and "hazel eyes that look like God ran out of the right color." Complicating matters further, she's a witch. 

It's these intriguing and frequently at-odds attributes that drive the action in the latest novel from Chicago-area author Nnedi Okorafor, a Nebula Award nominee who was born in the U.S. to Nigerian immigrant parents and has spent much time in the West African country. In an increasingly globalized world, Okorafor's outsider perspective offers a refreshing Afro take on the popular coming-of-age fantasy genre...

Read the rest of the review here.