Anyone who enjoyed the fresh depiction of African heroes and heroines in Black Panther will like Sunny, the main character in Nnedi Okorafor’s Akata Witch. She’s the rare strong female heroine missing from young adult fiction.
Born in New York to Nigerian parents, Sunny returns to Africa with her family as a teenager. And, as different as she is as “the new girl”, she’s even more different because of the color of her skin- or, rather, the lack of color in her skin. Sunny is an albino, which means her skin lacks color pigmentation. She’s very pale compared to her brothers and parents. Her hair is light and so are her eyes. There’s nothing physically wrong with her but she can’t do some of the common things like playing soccer during the day because she gets sunburn easily.
Returning to Africa is hard for Sunny because she doesn’t feel African and because the local kids use her looks as a reason to mistreat her. She’s bullied but don’t feel bad for Sunny. She’s about to learn that what makes her different also makes her quite powerful. See, Sunny is becoming aware of some strange abilities she has. She sees visions whenever she looks into the flame of a candle (the electricity goes out in Nigeria frequently) and this strange ability is just the beginning. Two of her classmates recognize her “gifts” as those of a “free agent”. She’s inducted into the secret Leopard society for training and soon Sunny is using her gifts to hunt down a deadly serial killer.
Sunny proves that her gifts are far more valuable than the superficial features that were misunderstood by those who bullied her. She takes charge- using her skills to outwit a killer. Akata Witch is a slick, fast-paced blend of adventure, mystery, fantasy, and sci-fi and it’s available in the MS/HS Library along with its sequel, Akata Warrior, the 2018 Hugo Award (science fiction) winner for Best Young Adult Book.
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