Akata Witch

So do I know anyone who has ever done the Popsugar reading challenges? I heard about them this year and so I’m going to try to do the challenge for 2025. They give 50 prompts that you need to fill with 50 different books. We’ll see how it goes!!

Anyway…Akata Witch is the December read for the Sword and Laser podcast. I’m also using it to fill Popsugar prompt #14 “A book about a nontraditional education.” The book follows Sunny, a Nigerian girl born in America who is also albino. She and her family have returned to Nigeria to live and Sunny has a hard time fitting in. This both becomes better and worse when Sunny learns she is a Leopard person (a magical person). She finds her way to new friends and teachers and learns to take her place in this new world.

This has a lot in common with other magical coming-of-age stories (think Harry Potter, etc), but the setting and characters in this book are unique and fun to read. I especially enjoyed that the way to earn magic currency is to learn new things. In a few places some of the side characters seem a bit one-dimensional (maybe because the book is YA?), but generally a good read. I believe this is the first of a trilogy and I would like to read more!