Children of Blood and Bone

Tomi Adeyemi had worked unsuccessfully on a manuscript for three years before beginning Children of Blood and Bone.[1] The idea for the novel came after a trip to Brazil: "I was in a gift shop there and the African gods and goddesses were depicted in such a beautiful and sacred way ... it really made me think about all the beautiful images we never see featuring black people".[2] Her desire to write an epic tale with roots in West Africa was matched by her desire to respond to police brutality.[3] The spate of police violence against black Americans had a large impact on Adeyemi; she wanted to escape the helplessness and fear she felt: "What is the point if my life ends at the barrel of a police officer’s gun?"[4] In the author's note at the end of the novel, Adeyemi makes a call to emotion, telling the reader that "if [they] cried for Zulaikha ... cry for innocent children like Jordan Edwards, Tamir Rice, and Aiyana Stanley-Jones."[5]

Adeyemi drew inspiration from Yoruba culture and Western fantasy fiction like Harry Potter and Avatar: The Last Airbender and from both West African mythology and the Black Lives Matter movement. She has also cited the books Shadowshaper and An Ember in the Ashes as primary inspirations.[2][6] Finally, Adeyemi was also affected by the backlash against the black characters in the film The Hunger Games: she wanted to write a story so good even racists would want to read it.[6][7]

Adeyemi worked as a creative writing coach while she wrote the novel.[8] While her first draft had major sections of the story omitted, the second draft, which she was ultimately forced to complete in a month to enter it in a writing competition, was where she felt it needed to meet her expectations.[4][9] For Adeyemi there was no option but for the book to be successful and perfect, given the pressures placed on black creators: "I’m not going to put Zélie’s face on the cover of this book and give you anything less than an incredible story, because for the kids who have never seen themselves, they need to see that, and they need to know that they are beautiful and that they are powerful".[4] She wrote the book while bingeing the television show The Good Wife in the background.[4] She became so exhausted through the non-stop work of the writing that she became disoriented, even at one point thinking she was a lawyer.[4] The entire editing process took eighteen months to complete, going through 45 drafts.[1]

Author Tomi Adeyemi in 2017

As in the J.K. Rowlings' Harry Potter series, Adeyemi wanted to build a complete world, though she did not like when she was called the "black J.K. Rowling", preferring instead phrases like "the new J.K. Rowling".[3][10] She worked hard to map the distances between cities and the time it would take a horse and lion to travel between them,[4] as well as reasoning through the logical implications of her creative choices, such as having characters ride big cats.[6] She also had to figure out parallels in her imagined world to issues like skin bleaching, which would not exist in a world without white people.[6] She got help from her Nigerian mother at times for things like naming the spells that involved use of the Yoruba language.[1]

Adeyemi entered Pitch Wars, a competition that matches emerging writers with mentor editors and authors to revise their work before submitting them to literary agents.[11] She came to be represented by Alexandra Machinist and Hillary Jacobson of ICM Partners.[10] In 2017, publishing rights to The Children of Blood and Bone sold as a trilogy to include two more books, and rights to the film adaptation sold to Fox 2000.[12] Reportedly these deals came to seven figures,[13][14] with Deadline describing it as "one of the biggest YA debut novel publishing deals ever."[12] Adeyemi was 23 at the time.[1]

Children of Blood and Bone was published on March 6, 2018, by Henry Holt Books for Young Readers after being called "the biggest fantasy debut novel of 2018" and one of the most anticipated books of the year.[2][15] A sequel, Children of Virtue and Vengeance, was published in December 2019.[16]

The novel takes place in the fictional land of Orïsha, inhabited by two distinct people: divîners, who have the capability to become magical maji and are marked by white hair, and non-magical kosidán. Eleven years prior to the events of the book, King Saran figured out how to switch off magic and ordered the slaying of many defenseless divîners, including the mother of Zélie Adebola. Since that time, divîners have been severely oppressed. After visiting the capital city, Lagos, to make enough money to pay off an increased tax on divîners, Zélie and her brother Tzain help a noble girl flee the clutches of local guards. This girl, who turns out to be Princess Amari, the daughter of King Saran, has stolen a magical scroll that can restore the magical powers of any divîner who touches it. The reason Amari stole the scroll was that after her servant and best friend, Binta, touched it and her powers came to life, King Saran killed her. Like her mother before her, Zélie is able to awaken her magical powers as a Reaper, giving her the power to command undead spirits.

Pursued by a contingent of guards led by Amari's brother Prince Inan and Admiral Kaea, the three travel to the temple of the maji, Chândomblé. The temple's remaining priest, Lekan, tells them that they must use the scroll, the bone dagger (which he gives them), and an artifact called the sunstone to perform a ritual to renew the connection between the maji and the gods, who are the source of all magic. He performs a rite on Zélie so she will be able to complete the connection, and then he sacrifices himself to hold off the guards as the trio escapes. Unknown to anyone else, contact with the scroll has given Prince Inan magical abilities to detect the feelings and memories of others. Kaea catches Inan using these abilities to track the trio and Inan accidentally uses his magic to kill her.

The trio finds themselves in Ibeji, where the sunstone is used as a prize for deadly aquatic arena games. They agree to compete and Zélie uses her powers to win the sunstone. Now in possession of all three artifacts, the group continues on their way until Inan catches up to them. In the chaos that follows, Tzain and Amari are captured in the forest by an unknown group. Inan agrees to help Zélie rescue their siblings. During the rescue, they learn that the group is really a settlement of divîners, some of whom have had their powers reawakened when they were exposed to the scroll before it was taken by the King's forces.

Upon hearing of the group's mission, they divîners decide to hold a festival for the Sky Mother where the remaining divîners will be able to touch the scroll. By this time, Inan, who has developed romantic feelings for Zélie, has agreed to help restore magic. However, Saran and his guards find and destroy the camp, also capturing Zélie. During the fight between the guards and the divîners, Kwame, a maji able to control fire, uses his magic to self-immolate and takes out guards with him. This display of powerful magic scares Inan, who changes his mind again and wants to repress his magic, knowing that his father would kill him should he ever reveal that he is a maji. Saran tortures Zélie to learn how to destroy the scroll, removing her magical ability in the process.

Tzain and Amari assemble a team and break Zélie out of prison. Zélie does not reveal her power loss and they hire a group of mercenaries, commanded by Roen, who allow them to infiltrate the secret island and temple to perform the ceremony. Once inside, however, they are ambushed by Saran and Inan, who are holding Zélie and Tzain's father. Feeling helpless, Zélie agrees to give the artifacts up in exchange for her and her father's life. As Zélie leaves the temple, Saran orders her father killed anyway. The spirit and blood magic of her father reawakens Zélie's magic and she uses her restored powers to attack the kosidán. Inan uses her rage and magic to his advantage, as he provokes an attack that destroys the scroll. Without thinking, Inan then uses his magic to stop an attack on Saran. Saran then apparently kills his son for being a secret maji. Furious, Amari kills her father.

Unable to repair the scroll, Zélie uses blood magic and an incantation of her own devising to complete the ritual, which apparently kills her in the process. Zélie is then able to speak with her mother, speaking on behalf of the gods in the afterlife, who praises her and sends her back. The book concludes as Zélie learns that Amari now has magic.

The conflict between the kosidán and maji, with the kosidán possessing lighter skin and having enslaved segments of the maji, raises issues of race and class and how these can be used to divide a nation.[17][18][19] Class ultimately becomes a stand-in for race in the book.[6] The story does not shy from showing the way that power can be bound up with brutality.[20] Saran feels that the only way to maintain control both personally as well as for his race is through oppression and enslavement of the minority.[18] For Saran it is not enough to control the maji; he must also extinguish their hope and threaten genocide.[18][21] Throughout the book, the maji respond to this oppression in different ways.[18] Zélie, who has seen her mother killed, her father beaten, and her own freedom jeopardized at the hands of guards, or the police, offers one reaction with her determination to resist and overthrow the social order, offering a model for real life black activists.[21][22] Inan, as both a maji and kosidán, has a different reaction, instead, wanting to see the two peoples united.[18] The magic of the maji also serves as a connection between humanity and the gods.[18]

The novel also tells a more intimate story as children struggle to win their parents' approval.[20] Inan wants to fulfill his duty to his father and kingdom in order to be a good prince, but is also a maji himself and has a personal connection to other maji through Zélie.[18] The complexity of teenagers who are eager to jump into the adult world and adult problems is also present in the novel as adolescents attempt to discover themselves.[20][3] While they struggle with the weight of these obligations, the point-of-view characters in the book are able to demonstrate wisdom, courage and compassion beyond that of the adults they are seeking to please.[20]

Ultimately, it's the female characters who survive trauma and show the way forward.[18][23] While Zélie initially mistakes Amari as weak, it becomes clear Amari has learned other coping strategies while surviving under her abusive father.[21] There is a great deal of loss in the book, with several characters, including Inan, dying, but Zélie and Amari continue in their efforts.[22]

Children of Blood and Bone has received generally positive reviews, debuting at number one on The New York Times best-seller list for young adult books and receiving praise from the newspaper for how "it storms the boundaries of the imagination. Yet it also confronts the conscience."[17][24] A starred review from Publishers Weekly lauded the novel for its complex characters and kaleidoscopic narrative.[25] Kirkus, which gave the book a starred review and nominated it for the Kirkus Prize, called it, "Powerful, captivating, and raw."[23] Charisse Jones of USA Today praised the novel, giving it four out of four stars: "While Tomi Adeyemi's Africa-inspired fantasy was written for young adults, readers of all ages will be captivated by this engrossing tale".[20] David Canfield of Entertainment Weekly called the novel a "phenomenon" owing to the success of a first-time author.[10] Author and poet Kiran Millwood Hargrave in The Guardian praised, "the hate-to-love romance [that] comes with high stakes, and the relationship is realistically and passionately realised. All of it is packaged in a tightly plotted, action-packed adventure."[26] Less positively, The A.V. Club said the book failed to live up to its hype, criticising the way magic works in the novel and its length.[27]

In 2018, the viewers of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon selected Children of Blood and Bone as the first ever "Tonight Show Summer Read". Adeyemi later appeared as a guest on the Tonight Show on July 24, 2018 to discuss the book.[28][29]

An 18-hour audiobook narrated by Bahni Turpin was released in March 2018.[30] The audiobook was well received. It won the 2019 Audie Award for best audiobook and was a runner-up for best Young Adult audiobook.[31] "There's something magical about the timbre of Turpin’s voice that's perfectly tuned to the fantastical nature of this novel. I felt transported into the world of Children of Blood and Bone," said Ron Charles, a judge for the award.[31] In a starred review, Hayley Schommer writing for Booklist complemented how the "pacing of the novel is further complemented by Turpin’s own, appropriate adjustments in pace."[32] Maggie Knapp in School Library Journal wrote of Turpin's ability to provide unique and distinguishable voices for both the main and supporting characters.[33] Publishers Weekly's starred review also praised Turpin's work, "Turpin’s bold reading of Adeyemi’s Afro-futurist fantasy solidifies her reputation as one of the best voice actors working today."[30] AudioFile magazine named it one of the best audiobooks of the year, praising Turpin's voices and her abilities to capture other elements of the novel, such as Yoruba incantations.[34]

Prior to publication, Children of Blood and Bone was optioned for a film adaptation produced by Fox 2000 Pictures and Temple Hill Productions.[12] Adeyemi had appreciated the work Fox 2000 and Temple Hill had done in producing Love, Simon and that they were the studios adapting The Hate U Give to film.[35] In February 2019, Rick Famuyiwa was announced as the director.[36] Adeyemi has said her dream cast would have Idris Elba in the role of Saran and Viola Davis playing Mama Agba.[3] However, after Disney acquired a majority of 21st Century Fox, which resulted in shuttering Fox 2000, the project was transferred to Lucasfilm, marking the studio's first original live-action project since its acquisition by Disney in 2012. Kay Oyegun (known for her work on the NBC comedy-drama series, This Is Us) is also attached to write the script for the film.[37] In September 2019, while talking to The Hollywood Reporter, Alan Horn revealed Kathleen Kennedy is in fact working with sister studio 20th Century Fox's chairman Emma Watts in developing the film.[38] In December 2020, producer Kathleen Kennedy announced that Lucasfilm would co-produce the film with 20th Century Studios for release in 2022.[39]

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