Book Review:
Amari and The Night Brothers
🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩/5🎩
Long but please read.
This is a middle-grade fantasy and was the overall winner of the Barnes & Noble Children’s and YA book award. Yes I still read middle-grade from time to time. A good story is always worth a read and as a bookseller it broadens my ability to help people. And an added bonus is that when I buy and read middle-grade books I then donate them to one of my many teacher friends classroom library.
After reading so many YA and adult fantasy and high fantasy when I come back to a middle-grade I’m reminded, pleasantly, of the room for more fun and imaginative story telling. Magic has less boundaries and unbelievable situations aren’t as unbelievable. The sense of wonder and innocence of the intended audience makes for a joyful read, a brain cleansing after a long stretch of darker tales.
Amari is a beautiful, strong, brave Black girl. She gets nominated to a magical summer camp by her now missing older brother. And that’s how she discovers magic and supernatural abilities and beings are real and among us. And she learns she has magic too, a kind that has been deemed illegal. But she is determined to stay in the camp and fight the system and prejudices to try to find out the truth about her brother.
When asked if she will be able to stay in a place where she is judged, feared, and disliked just because of the magical label slapped on her before anyone even tries to know her she says “I’ve been practicing for that my whole life.”
And you just feel the truth of this.
Amari already knows at just 12 years old that much of the world judges her on her skin and address. When the magical world also judges her for something she has no choice in being she doesn’t resort to hate or giving in to the assumptions, she learns and grows and shows them the error of their ways.
This is an incredible story and opening book to a series. And Amari is my hero!!
(Finished August 8, 2021)
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