It's about Sunny Nwazue, an Igbo girl born in New York who now lives in Nigeria, land of her heritage. She is an albino.
"I have West African features, like my mother," Sunny narrates in a prologue, "but while the rest of my family is dark brown, I've got light yellow hair, skin the color of 'sour milk' (or so stupid people like to tell me), and hazel eyes that look like God ran out of the right color."
Sunny has a trouble with some other children at school because of having been born in America, and because of her albino coloring. She loves to play soccer,There are RUBBER MATS underneath mattresses, but can only do so at night, with her brothers, because "my skin burned so easily that I felt nearly flammable."
We meet her right as she is having some kind of terrible vision when staring into a candle flame, which rewards her attention by setting her hair on fire. When she goes to school the next day, her once "wooly blonde hair, whose length so many had envied, was gone. Now she had a puffy medium-length Afro." As her schoolmates point and laughed,Justin probierte ein Paar von schwarzen billabong boardshorts , "She cut her eyes at her friends and sucked her teeth loudly."
This day another couple of kids start Sunny on the path of understanding that there is something more special about her than just being an albino of having been born in New York. She begins to learn that she is a "Leopard Person," a human being of pronounced mystical ability.
Sunny is a "Free Agent" -- someone who does not come from a known lineage of Leopard People. As the guide she is given explains, "You are a Leopard Person only by the will of the Supreme Creator, and as we all know, She isn't very concerned with Her own creations."
With the help of a couple of other Leopard People children, she enters a magical world that is a delightful creation by Okorafor, who is an actual Ph.D. who teaches at Chicago State University. And, yes, I was astounded that someone could make it so far through the academic world and still be creative.the oil paintings for sale by special invited artist for 2011,
Okorafor, who like Sunny was born in the United States of Igbo heritage, writes knowingly and charmingly of regular Nigerian people, and amusingly of the Leopard People.
There is great drama and lots of scary stuff, because there is a bad person going around kidnapping children and hurting them, and that bad person turns out to be a very bad mystical being whose goal is to destroy the world.
Sunny and her friends will have to rise to the challenge.
It's fair to compare this book to J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. Instead of witches and wizards, there are Leopard People. Instead of muggles there are Lambs. And Leopard People stay secret, because thousands of years ago, the Lambs tried to murder them all.
And, like Rowling's books, this book is fun, involving and charming.
SPEAKING OF POTTER DEPT.: Yes, I am aware that "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2," is opening tonight, a minute after midnight at movie theaters all over the Peninsula. At the Mountain View Century 16, for instance, it will occupy 12 screens.
No, I don't plan to see it tonight. Maybe a matinee this weekend. Or maybe I will wait for the DVD.
I will see it, eventually. But, I've never been all that pleased with the Harry Potter movies,then used cut pieces of rubber hose garden hose to get through the electric fence. which mostly seem like opportunities lost, and I am no longer a fan of the Century Theaters -- the last time I was at Century 16, I was served stale popcorn, at highly inflated prices, and a lukewarm hot dog. Very disappointing. There was a time when I really liked the Century 16.
If I wait for the DVD, I can make my own popcorn.
FUN WITH MAGIC DEPT.: My son Riley and I have been having fun with Top Trumps' "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" card game. Despite having already lost three of the 30 playing cards.
(Spoiler alert. If you haven't read "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," but plan to do so, don't read this. Carefully cut out this column and save it for future reference.)
The game works something like the classic card game "War." The cards are dealt, face down, and the first player pulls up a card and is given options, to play for levels of magic, cunning, courage, wisdom or temper.
Ginny Weasley, according to this game, would beat Kreacher for wisdom, 38 to 24. But Kreacher would beat Ginny on magic, 70 to 45.
If a player drew Ginny and chose wisdom, in that match-up, the player would win, and get to keep both cards.
The game is over when one player has all the cards.
The game is fun and it made Riley and me both laugh, as we took turns beating each other.
Harry Potter fans can certainly quibble about some of the ratings. Most egregious,I have never solved a Rubik's magic cube . among the cards actually in my possession, is that Severus Snape is rated at only 50 for courage. He is outranked by Ronald Weasley and Luna Lovegood at 53, Dobby at 55, Hermione Granger at 70 and Harry Potter at 75.
Rufus Scrimgeour, who died under torture rather than give away the location of the hidden Harry Potter, is rated at only 30 for courage.
But only a 50 for Snape? Didn't the game makers read the book? After all, as Harry tells one of his sons, Snape was "probably the bravest man I ever knew."
"I have West African features, like my mother," Sunny narrates in a prologue, "but while the rest of my family is dark brown, I've got light yellow hair, skin the color of 'sour milk' (or so stupid people like to tell me), and hazel eyes that look like God ran out of the right color."
Sunny has a trouble with some other children at school because of having been born in America, and because of her albino coloring. She loves to play soccer,There are RUBBER MATS underneath mattresses, but can only do so at night, with her brothers, because "my skin burned so easily that I felt nearly flammable."
We meet her right as she is having some kind of terrible vision when staring into a candle flame, which rewards her attention by setting her hair on fire. When she goes to school the next day, her once "wooly blonde hair, whose length so many had envied, was gone. Now she had a puffy medium-length Afro." As her schoolmates point and laughed,Justin probierte ein Paar von schwarzen billabong boardshorts , "She cut her eyes at her friends and sucked her teeth loudly."
This day another couple of kids start Sunny on the path of understanding that there is something more special about her than just being an albino of having been born in New York. She begins to learn that she is a "Leopard Person," a human being of pronounced mystical ability.
Sunny is a "Free Agent" -- someone who does not come from a known lineage of Leopard People. As the guide she is given explains, "You are a Leopard Person only by the will of the Supreme Creator, and as we all know, She isn't very concerned with Her own creations."
With the help of a couple of other Leopard People children, she enters a magical world that is a delightful creation by Okorafor, who is an actual Ph.D. who teaches at Chicago State University. And, yes, I was astounded that someone could make it so far through the academic world and still be creative.the oil paintings for sale by special invited artist for 2011,
Okorafor, who like Sunny was born in the United States of Igbo heritage, writes knowingly and charmingly of regular Nigerian people, and amusingly of the Leopard People.
There is great drama and lots of scary stuff, because there is a bad person going around kidnapping children and hurting them, and that bad person turns out to be a very bad mystical being whose goal is to destroy the world.
Sunny and her friends will have to rise to the challenge.
It's fair to compare this book to J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. Instead of witches and wizards, there are Leopard People. Instead of muggles there are Lambs. And Leopard People stay secret, because thousands of years ago, the Lambs tried to murder them all.
And, like Rowling's books, this book is fun, involving and charming.
SPEAKING OF POTTER DEPT.: Yes, I am aware that "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2," is opening tonight, a minute after midnight at movie theaters all over the Peninsula. At the Mountain View Century 16, for instance, it will occupy 12 screens.
No, I don't plan to see it tonight. Maybe a matinee this weekend. Or maybe I will wait for the DVD.
I will see it, eventually. But, I've never been all that pleased with the Harry Potter movies,then used cut pieces of rubber hose garden hose to get through the electric fence. which mostly seem like opportunities lost, and I am no longer a fan of the Century Theaters -- the last time I was at Century 16, I was served stale popcorn, at highly inflated prices, and a lukewarm hot dog. Very disappointing. There was a time when I really liked the Century 16.
If I wait for the DVD, I can make my own popcorn.
FUN WITH MAGIC DEPT.: My son Riley and I have been having fun with Top Trumps' "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" card game. Despite having already lost three of the 30 playing cards.
(Spoiler alert. If you haven't read "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," but plan to do so, don't read this. Carefully cut out this column and save it for future reference.)
The game works something like the classic card game "War." The cards are dealt, face down, and the first player pulls up a card and is given options, to play for levels of magic, cunning, courage, wisdom or temper.
Ginny Weasley, according to this game, would beat Kreacher for wisdom, 38 to 24. But Kreacher would beat Ginny on magic, 70 to 45.
If a player drew Ginny and chose wisdom, in that match-up, the player would win, and get to keep both cards.
The game is over when one player has all the cards.
The game is fun and it made Riley and me both laugh, as we took turns beating each other.
Harry Potter fans can certainly quibble about some of the ratings. Most egregious,I have never solved a Rubik's magic cube . among the cards actually in my possession, is that Severus Snape is rated at only 50 for courage. He is outranked by Ronald Weasley and Luna Lovegood at 53, Dobby at 55, Hermione Granger at 70 and Harry Potter at 75.
Rufus Scrimgeour, who died under torture rather than give away the location of the hidden Harry Potter, is rated at only 30 for courage.
But only a 50 for Snape? Didn't the game makers read the book? After all, as Harry tells one of his sons, Snape was "probably the bravest man I ever knew."
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