Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

Hi, my name is Deven Galvez, and over the summer, I read an excessive number of books. One of the books is Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi. This article is going to describe the plot of the book and explain areas where the book did well and didn’t do well. 

 

Plot

 

Children of Blood and Bone is about a girl named Zelie who lives in Orïsha, a place with three types of people: diviners, kosidáns, and maji. Diviners are people who have the capacity to perform magic but can't cast magic because they are too young. When they reach the correct age, they can cast magic and become a maji. Kosidáns don't have magic, nor will they obtain the ability to cast magic. There are ten different types of magic each controlling an element of life:

• Life and death- Reapers
• Mind, spirit, and dreams- Connectors
• Water- Tiders
• Fire- Burners
• Air- Winders
• Iron and earth- Welders and Grounders
• Darkness and light- Lighters
• Health and disease- Healers and Cancers
• Time- Seers
• Animals- Tamers

Maji and diviners are recognized by their white hair or white streak in their hair.

Despite this drastic divide, there was peace between the three groups. However, as time passed, kosidáns saw less of the beauty in the magic that maji caste but saw the danger and threat it imposed against them. Thus, one by one, countries waged war on the maji and diviners simply because of their power. All of them failed, except Orïsha who successfully massacred the entire maji population and somehow destroyed the connection to magic that diviners had, preventing them from casting magic when they turned of age. Zelie commonly refers to this event as the Raid, where everything she loved was taken.

Years after the Raid, Zelie is shown a sacred ritual to bring magic back to every diviner in the world. Along with her brother and a fugitive princess, they are given the long quest to bring magic back and reconnect diviners to their patron God. However, they also are being chased by the prince who is determined to destroy magic and kill Zelie. Arguments are exchanged, love is shared, and lives are lost throughout their journey. Will this group have the courage and strength to continue the impossible quest?

 

What I Liked and Didn't Like About the Book 

 

When reading Children of Blood and Bone, I was on a roller coaster of emotions. The description of the character's emotions allowed me to empathize with the character who is narrating. The book also dealt with powerful emotions such as rage, sadness, grief, and revenge, which are very hard to describe. This book, however, displayed very few joyous moments, which were quickly extinguished abruptly by an argument or attack. Overall, Tomi Adeyemi did an excellent job at the description of the characters, their emotions, and the events that happened in the book. 

Interestingly, this was a unique book that depicts, to some extent, our current society. I was able to view the author’s purpose behind this novel, which was bringing awareness to the injustice of African Americans. As the author states, African Americans have been killed, beaten, and belittled currently and throughout our history. Throughout this book, she expressed her experiences of injustice within these characters.

I highly recommend Children of Blood and Bone to anyone who likes magic, fiction, and romance books. I also recommend this book to everyone who liked Akata Witch from last year's reading class because Children of Blood and Bone uses a similar type of magic that Sunny, Orlu, Chichi, and Sasha used in Akata Witch.