Buckle up, because we have plenty to discuss about the young adult novel Children of Blood and Bone. Tomi Adeyemi beautifully wraps up social commentary spanning racism, oppression, sexual assault… into my favorite form: fantasy.

Though I prefer print, I read this book in a couple days on my phone on loan from my local library. It’s hard for me to tell how long the mobile version of a book is, but turns out that in print, Children of Blood and Bone is a hefty 525 pages. It’s a testament to how gripping and compelling the book is that I was motivated to finish it so quickly.

The backdrop of this new novel is a magical African kingdom, Orïsha. Elements of Yoruba culture and language are woven into the world of Orïsha, where twelve gods and the deity Sky Mother endow magic to her people. In the main character’s childhood, only the maji, those with ancestry that is obvious through tightly curled white hair, can wield magic, but the magic suddenly and mysteriously disappears, leaving the maji defenseless to a violent king.

Once the threat of magic is gone, a hateful ruler orders the Raid – an ethnic cleansing of the adult maji. The main character, Zélie, loses her mother to this violence. Now, as a young adult oppressed under the rule of this king, she begins an unexpected quest to bring back magic.

Tomi Adeyemi writes in the author’s note that Children of Blood and Bone is a response to the ceaseless bloodying and killing of Black people in America. She writes, “I shed many tears before I wrote this book. Many tears as I revised it. And even as it sits in your hands now, I know that I will shed tears again” (526). Though she wrote this novel as fantasy, the reality of racism and race-based violence is steeped in this novel, and it speaks to many truths.

Institutional racism is a term that describes racism that an institution (such as a government, kingdom, or social group) promotes with policies, values, norms, and practices. For example, the American government’s practice of arresting people of color at a higher rate than White people is a form of institutional racism. Tomi Adeyemi explains the consequences of institutional racism. Her main character says about the king’s violent guards who arrest and assault maji constantly, “The only difference between them and criminals is the uniforms they wear” (323).

The clash between privileged people and oppressed people comes out in the mistrust Zélie feels for Amari, the princess who works with Zélie to return magic to the maji. Their different experiences mean that Amari has a hard time understanding Zélie’s oppression and the life-or-death risks she has to take. In the juxtaposition of these two characters, readers can see how colorism (the extra racism darker skinned Black people face), wealth, and labels have shaped how they understand their world. Amari is lighter skinned, rich, and called “Princess” while Zélie is dark skinned, poor, and called “maggot,” a slur.

Children of Blood and Bone doesn’t just take on institutional racism and police brutality, Tomi Adeyemi also writes scenes demonstrating positive and consensual intimacy between characters. Respect for others’ bodies and consent is a lesson especially important for the young adult audience this book was designed for.

Characters in the story negotiate consent with each new boundary they want to cross without “ruining the moment.” A realistic inner monologue of a young man flirting and kissing someone he feels a strong attraction to shows that instead of giving in to the intense desires running through his head, he pulls away, reading his partner’s face and body language and asking questions like, “Are you sure?” throughout (384-385). It is certainly refreshing to have an author create a male character who isn’t singly driven by his sexual desires, showing that a man who doesn’t wait to hear “no” to stop but waits to hear “yes” to start should be the norm.

This contrasts starkly to a scene when a drunken guard assaults a young woman. When the guard grabs her, “anger twists into a black rage” and her “skin crawls” (51). She endures his unwelcome touch in silence to avoid confrontation, attention, and violence – a strategy that women in the real world use, too. In this way, we can compare a healthy relationship with an unavoidable and poisonous violation.

In the real world, feelings of helplessness in the face of discrimination and oppression may resemble those Zélie experiences because of her maji heritage. She thinks, “It doesn’t matter how strong I get, how much power my magic wields. They will always hate me in this world. I will always be afraid” (312). Though her resilience falters sometimes, she carries on and continues to fight for her people’s justice.

During the climax of the narrative, Zélie thinks, “I see the truth – in plain sight yet hidden all along. We are all children of blood and bone. All instruments of vengeance and virtue” (518-519). Despite differences, oppressed and oppressors were all created by the Sky Mother as one humanity and given the potential to be vengeful and virtuous.

This realization makes one think. If Orïshans are all children of blood and bone, the categorizations that separate them along lines of heritage and color do not naturally make some better than others or justify oppression. Their categories are shown to be arbitrary, driving the point home that people create hierarchies out of fear, ignorance, hatred, and greed under the belief that some people are endowed natural supremacy and others inferiority.