Akata Witch

by

Nnedi Okorafor

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Akata Witch makes teaching easy.

Sunny Nwazue Character Analysis

Sunny, the protagonist of the novel, is a 12-year-old Nigerian girl. However, Sunny doesn’t feel secure in her identity as a Black Nigerian, as she was born in New York and is albino. In addition to making her so sensitive to the sun that she can’t play soccer, her favorite sport, Sunny’s albinism also makes her a target for bullying. Sunny’s life changes the day she sees a vision of the end of the world in a candle flame. She meets Orlu and Chichi the next day after school, and they soon introduce her to Anatov, who inducts Sunny into Leopard (magical) society. Sunny learns that she’s a Leopard free agent, and that her albinism is what makes her a powerful Leopard Person: it means that she already has one foot in the wilderness (the spirit world), so she should be able to make herself invisible, manipulate time, and receive premonitions from beings in the spirit world. As Sunny spends the next few months attending both Lamb (nonmagical) and Leopard school, she becomes happier and increasingly secure in who she is. However, though she suspects that her maternal grandmother was a Leopard Person, her mother remains unwilling to tell Sunny anything about her family history. At first, Sunny resents the Leopard philosophy that prioritizes education and the collective good over an individual person’s safety, because it’s scary for her to know that her teachers are willing to put her and her friends’ lives at risk. But gradually, Sunny comes to see the value of prioritizing the collective good. She learns this when scholars reveal that Sunny and her friends are an Oha coven assembled to take down the ritual killer Black Hat Otokoto, who was Sunny’s grandmother’s mentee and killer. Sunny feels out of her depth as she and her friends fight with Otokoto and Ekwensu, the dangerous masquerade he brings to the physical world. But as she connects to her spirit identity, Anyanwu, she suddenly feels secure and at peace. Sunny sends Ekwensu back to the wilderness, and after this, the esteemed scholar Sugar Cream agrees to take Sunny on as a mentee.

Sunny Nwazue Quotes in Akata Witch

The Akata Witch quotes below are all either spoken by Sunny Nwazue or refer to Sunny Nwazue. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Identity and Belonging Theme Icon
).
Chapter 2 Quotes

“But I can tell there’s more to you. I just know it.”

“What do you mean, more?”

Chichi smiled mysteriously. “People say stuff about people like you. That you’re all ghost, or a half and half, one foot in this world and one foot in another.” She paused. “That you can…see things.”

Sunny rolled her eyes. Not this again, she thought. So cliché. Everyone thinks the old lady, the hunchback, the crazy man, and the albino have magical evil powers. “Whatever,” she grumbled. She didn’t want to think about the candle.

Chichi laughed. “You’re right, those are silly stereotypes about albinos. But in your case, I think there’s something to it.”

Related Characters: Sunny Nwazue (speaker), Chichi (speaker)
Related Symbols: Sunny’s Albinism
Page Number: 23
Explanation and Analysis:

Her father believed that all one needed to succeed in life was an education. He had gone to school for many years to become a barrister, and then gone on to be the most successful child in his family. Sunny’s mother was an MD, and often talked about how excelling in school had opened opportunities to her that girls only two decades before didn’t normally get. So Sunny believed in education, too. But here was Chichi’s mother, surrounded by the hundreds of books she’d read, living in a decrepit old mud hut with her daughter.

Related Characters: Sunny Nwazue, Sunny’s Mother, Sunny’s Father, Chichi’s Mother
Page Number: 28
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

“If not for Sunny, we wouldn’t have come today.”

“Things have a way of working themselves out,” Anatov said. “It’s as I taught you: the world is bigger and more important than you.”

Related Characters: Chichi (speaker), Anatov (speaker), Sunny Nwazue, Orlu, Sasha, Black Hat Otokoto
Page Number: 54
Explanation and Analysis:

“Troublemaking black American,” Orlu spat. “Akata criminal.”

“Hey!” Sunny said.

“As if I don’t know what that means,” Sasha said, looking mildly annoyed.

[…]

“So you know,” [Sunny] continued, “I was born in the States, too. I came back with my parents when I was nine. That’s only three years ago.” She paused and looked meaningfully at Orlu. “I may not talk about it much, but most days I feel very much like an…akata.”

Related Characters: Sunny Nwazue (speaker), Orlu (speaker), Sasha (speaker), Chichi
Page Number: 58
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

“But I’ve always known of my Leopard inheritance and I’ve always been able to do small things like make mosquitoes stay away, warm my bathwater, things like that. Initiation meant something different to me than to you. It’s more a mark of beginning my life’s journey. Yours was, too—but it was also the actual beginning of your Self.”

Related Characters: Chichi (speaker), Sunny Nwazue
Page Number: 64
Explanation and Analysis:

“Money and material things make you king or queen of the Lamb world. You can do no wrong, you can do anything.

“Leopard People are different. The only way you can earn chittim is by learning. The more you learn, the more chittim you earn. Knowledge is the center of all things. The Head Librarian of the Obi Library of Leopard Knocks is the keeper of the greatest stock of knowledge in West Africa.”

Related Characters: Orlu (speaker), Sunny Nwazue, Sugar Cream
Page Number: 82
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

She closed her eyes and soaked in the warm light. She didn’t need to stand in there for an hour to know—she knew deep in her skin. The sunshine felt like a warm friend, not an angry enemy. She didn’t need her umbrella anymore.

“Oh my goodness,” she whispered. “I can play soccer!”

Realizing what she was was the beginning of something, all right…but it was also the end of something else.

Related Characters: Sunny Nwazue (speaker), Sunny’s Father
Related Symbols: Sunny’s Albinism
Page Number: 94
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

“Knowledge does not always evolve into wisdom.”

Related Characters: Anatov (speaker), Sunny Nwazue, Orlu, Chichi, Sasha, Isong Abong Effiong Isong
Page Number: 113
Explanation and Analysis:

“So because I’m a Leopard albino, I can—”

“Yes. Certain attributes tend to yield certain talents. […] Abilities are things people are able to do without the use of a juju knife, powders, or other ingredients like the head of an ebett. They just come naturally.”

Related Characters: Sunny Nwazue (speaker), Anatov (speaker), Orlu, Chichi, Sasha
Related Symbols: Sunny’s Albinism
Page Number: 117
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

“If you’d have all perished, we’d have found you and your bodies would have been returned to your parents with…explanation,” Kehinde said.

Sunny’s mouth fell open. What kind of barbaric coldhearted man was this?

“Come now,” Kehinde said, pulling out a newspaper. He shook it at them. “Have you seen the news lately? If you haven’t noticed, a person’s life, especially a young person’s, isn’t worth much these days. The world is bigger than all of you. Chances have to be taken. But thankfully, here you are.”

Related Characters: Kehinde (speaker), Sunny Nwazue, Orlu, Chichi, Sasha, Black Hat Otokoto
Page Number: 132
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

“Teamwork is the only reason you four lived to see Kehinde,” Anatov said. “There are seriously unsafe places in Leopard Knocks. Places where people try to steal chittim instead of earning it. Where they have forgotten why they receive chittim in the first place. Knowledge is more valuable than the chittim it earns.”

Related Characters: Anatov (speaker), Sunny Nwazue, Orlu, Chichi, Sasha, Black Hat Otokoto, Kehinde
Page Number: 148-149
Explanation and Analysis:

“The second and third are the university, for true scholars. Third levelers, Ndibus, who want to keep evolving.”

“My mother goes there,” Chichi said proudly. “She’s one of the younger students, though.”

“Younger?” Chichi’s mother was about her mother’s age.

“It’s not like with Lambs,” Orlu said. “Age is one of the requirements to even start at the Obi University of Pre-Scholars. You have to be over forty-two.”

Related Characters: Sunny Nwazue (speaker), Orlu (speaker), Chichi (speaker), Sasha, Sunny’s Mother, Chichi’s Mother
Page Number: 159
Explanation and Analysis:

“You expect us to capture this Black Hat, who is like you, one of these people who has passed the highest of the highest level of juju ability? That’s—I mean no disrespect—” She paused, the irritation that had been brewing in her for weeks suddenly flaring bright. She felt used. “That’s insane! And—and I’m beginning to know how you people think! You’ll just find some other kids to do it if we’re all murdered! And why am I included in this?! I don’t know anything!”

“This is bigger than you,” Taiwo said, turning very serious. “But you’re part of it, too. It would be unfair for me to expect you to understand this just yet, but you will.”

Related Characters: Sunny Nwazue (speaker), Taiwo (speaker), Orlu, Chichi, Sasha, Black Hat Otokoto
Page Number: 170
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

“Listen. It was your grandmother, Ozoemena, who taught Otokoto all he knows. She was his mentor. And it was Otokoto who killed your grandmother in a ritual to steal her abilities as he stole her life. You want to know why he is so powerful? All you need to look at is who your grandmother was and who Otokoto was before he became the infamous Black Hat.”

Related Characters: Sugar Cream (speaker), Sunny Nwazue, Black Hat Otokoto, Sunny’s Grandmother/Ozoemena
Page Number: 190-191
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

“Your parents born here?”

“Yeah,” she said.

“Then you from here and there. Dual thing, you know?”

She laughed. “If you say so.”

“I know so.”

“So what’s that make me, then?”

“Who cares?” he said. “You want a juju knife, right?”

Related Characters: Sunny Nwazue (speaker), Junk Man (speaker), Sunny’s Mother, Sunny’s Father
Page Number: 218
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

“You’re neck-deep in Leopard society right now. The good thing is that it doesn’t get any deeper than this. Sometimes it’s best to just jump in. Then, after that first shock, you can handle anything.”

“Yeah,” she said, wiping her eyes again. “I—I got my juju knife today, too.”

“That’s wonderful,” he said. He looked down at her. “Use it well and true. There are more valuable things in life than safety and comfort. Learn. You owe it to yourself. All this”—he motioned around them—“you’ll get used to in time.”

Related Characters: Sunny Nwazue (speaker), Miknikstic/The Man (speaker)
Page Number: 228-229
Explanation and Analysis:

“Why didn’t they stop it?”

“Because life doesn’t work that way,” Anatov said. “When things get bad, they don’t stop until you stop the badness—or die.” He paused. “That’s an important lesson for all of you. This is why I brought you here. This is why you’re staying in that hotel. Look around, listen, and learn. This is not a holiday. In a month, you will all be facing something as ugly as what these two men faced this afternoon.”

Related Characters: Sasha (speaker), Anatov (speaker), Sunny Nwazue, Orlu, Chichi, Black Hat Otokoto, Miknikstic/The Man, Sayé
Page Number: 242
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

One of the other boys in white laughed and said something in a language she didn’t understand. Two other boys in white laughed hard, too. There was a rise in the chatter from the audience. She was used to ridicule, but this hurt more than usual. This wasn’t just about her being albino, this was about her being a girl—an ugly girl. Stupid boys. Stupid, blockhead, idiot boys, she thought.

Related Characters: Sunny Nwazue, Godwin, Ibou
Related Symbols: Sunny’s Albinism
Page Number: 256
Explanation and Analysis:

“That was amazing, o!” Godwin exclaimed.

“Did you see her?” Kouty exclaimed.

“Like Pele!” Sasha shouted.

The French speakers were shouting in French.

And chittim rained on us all.

The white team looked half as happy, and less than half as much chittim fell around them. They gathered and calmly slapped hands, turning to look at the green team celebrating its loss.

Related Characters: Sasha (speaker), Godwin (speaker), Sunny Nwazue, Ibou
Page Number: 262
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

“How many chittim fell when it was over?”

“Seven coppers,” Orlu mumbled. “We could have gotten people killed and we got paid for it.”

“As a group you made a mistake and you learned you could also right it,” Anatov said.

Related Characters: Orlu (speaker), Anatov (speaker), Sunny Nwazue, Chichi, Sasha
Page Number: 283
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

“No one is willing to push the envelope. So what if she called up a damn Mmuo Aku and it went wild! She still did it! She still performed the most sophisticated juju any of them had ever seen.”

“True, but you’re wrong,” Orlu said. “We can’t live in chaos. The ages are set for each level for a reason. You can be able to do something and not be mature enough to deal with the consequences.”

Related Characters: Orlu (speaker), Sasha (speaker), Sunny Nwazue, Chichi, Anatov
Page Number: 286
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

“You’ve made good progress, Sunny,” Anatov said.

“Thanks.”

“What I’d like you to think about, though, is who you are. Because within that knowledge is the key to how much you can learn.”

She frowned, thinking about what had just happened with her mother. “Oga,” she whispered, “these days I don’t really think I know who I am.” Anatov was silent. “What do you know of my grandmother? Who was she?”

Related Characters: Sunny Nwazue (speaker), Anatov (speaker), Sunny’s Mother, Sunny’s Grandmother/Ozoemena
Page Number: 299
Explanation and Analysis:

Sunny frowned. “You mean you’ve sent other groups like ours? And—”

“We have and will continue to until Black Hat is taken down,” Yaboko said. “More is at stake than your lives.”

“Black Hat is a shrewd sorcerer,” Abok said. “He has protection, but we have watched for loopholes. The children that returned maimed but alive were all rescued by Oha covens.”

“Did the rescuers escape, too?” she asked.

None of the scholars replied. That was answer enough.

Related Characters: Sunny Nwazue (speaker), Abok (speaker), Orlu, Chichi, Sasha, Black Hat Otokoto
Page Number: 310
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

“You come any closer and you’ll ruin what’s already in motion. Then I’ll have to slaughter you two instead of just these children. Get outside,” Black Hat said. Then he seemed to be speaking to someone else. “You all may leave, too. These kids are harmless. Go watch for real threats,” he said. All the commotion and squawking behind Sunny instantly stopped as the bush souls obeyed.

Related Characters: Black Hat Otokoto (speaker), Sunny Nwazue, Orlu, Chichi, Sasha
Page Number: 319
Explanation and Analysis:

On instinct, Sunny let her spirit face move forward. In that moment, her fear of everything left her—her fear of Ekwensu’s evil, of being flayed alive by the monster’s fronds, of her family learning of her death, of the world’s end. It all evaporated. Sunny smiled. She knew how the world would end. She knew that someday she would die. She knew her family would live on if she died right now. And she realized that she knew Ekwensu.

And Sunny hated her.

Related Characters: Sunny Nwazue, Black Hat Otokoto, Ekwensu
Page Number: 326
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 21 Quotes

“Grandma,” she whispered. As the old blind woman at the council meeting had said, Sunny looked nothing like her. But what did that matter? She smiled to herself and carefully put the picture back in the box.

Related Characters: Sunny Nwazue (speaker), Sunny’s Grandmother/Ozoemena, Abok
Related Symbols: Sunny’s Albinism
Page Number: 345
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Akata Witch LitChart as a printable PDF.
Akata Witch PDF

Sunny Nwazue Quotes in Akata Witch

The Akata Witch quotes below are all either spoken by Sunny Nwazue or refer to Sunny Nwazue. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Identity and Belonging Theme Icon
).
Chapter 2 Quotes

“But I can tell there’s more to you. I just know it.”

“What do you mean, more?”

Chichi smiled mysteriously. “People say stuff about people like you. That you’re all ghost, or a half and half, one foot in this world and one foot in another.” She paused. “That you can…see things.”

Sunny rolled her eyes. Not this again, she thought. So cliché. Everyone thinks the old lady, the hunchback, the crazy man, and the albino have magical evil powers. “Whatever,” she grumbled. She didn’t want to think about the candle.

Chichi laughed. “You’re right, those are silly stereotypes about albinos. But in your case, I think there’s something to it.”

Related Characters: Sunny Nwazue (speaker), Chichi (speaker)
Related Symbols: Sunny’s Albinism
Page Number: 23
Explanation and Analysis:

Her father believed that all one needed to succeed in life was an education. He had gone to school for many years to become a barrister, and then gone on to be the most successful child in his family. Sunny’s mother was an MD, and often talked about how excelling in school had opened opportunities to her that girls only two decades before didn’t normally get. So Sunny believed in education, too. But here was Chichi’s mother, surrounded by the hundreds of books she’d read, living in a decrepit old mud hut with her daughter.

Related Characters: Sunny Nwazue, Sunny’s Mother, Sunny’s Father, Chichi’s Mother
Page Number: 28
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

“If not for Sunny, we wouldn’t have come today.”

“Things have a way of working themselves out,” Anatov said. “It’s as I taught you: the world is bigger and more important than you.”

Related Characters: Chichi (speaker), Anatov (speaker), Sunny Nwazue, Orlu, Sasha, Black Hat Otokoto
Page Number: 54
Explanation and Analysis:

“Troublemaking black American,” Orlu spat. “Akata criminal.”

“Hey!” Sunny said.

“As if I don’t know what that means,” Sasha said, looking mildly annoyed.

[…]

“So you know,” [Sunny] continued, “I was born in the States, too. I came back with my parents when I was nine. That’s only three years ago.” She paused and looked meaningfully at Orlu. “I may not talk about it much, but most days I feel very much like an…akata.”

Related Characters: Sunny Nwazue (speaker), Orlu (speaker), Sasha (speaker), Chichi
Page Number: 58
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

“But I’ve always known of my Leopard inheritance and I’ve always been able to do small things like make mosquitoes stay away, warm my bathwater, things like that. Initiation meant something different to me than to you. It’s more a mark of beginning my life’s journey. Yours was, too—but it was also the actual beginning of your Self.”

Related Characters: Chichi (speaker), Sunny Nwazue
Page Number: 64
Explanation and Analysis:

“Money and material things make you king or queen of the Lamb world. You can do no wrong, you can do anything.

“Leopard People are different. The only way you can earn chittim is by learning. The more you learn, the more chittim you earn. Knowledge is the center of all things. The Head Librarian of the Obi Library of Leopard Knocks is the keeper of the greatest stock of knowledge in West Africa.”

Related Characters: Orlu (speaker), Sunny Nwazue, Sugar Cream
Page Number: 82
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

She closed her eyes and soaked in the warm light. She didn’t need to stand in there for an hour to know—she knew deep in her skin. The sunshine felt like a warm friend, not an angry enemy. She didn’t need her umbrella anymore.

“Oh my goodness,” she whispered. “I can play soccer!”

Realizing what she was was the beginning of something, all right…but it was also the end of something else.

Related Characters: Sunny Nwazue (speaker), Sunny’s Father
Related Symbols: Sunny’s Albinism
Page Number: 94
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

“Knowledge does not always evolve into wisdom.”

Related Characters: Anatov (speaker), Sunny Nwazue, Orlu, Chichi, Sasha, Isong Abong Effiong Isong
Page Number: 113
Explanation and Analysis:

“So because I’m a Leopard albino, I can—”

“Yes. Certain attributes tend to yield certain talents. […] Abilities are things people are able to do without the use of a juju knife, powders, or other ingredients like the head of an ebett. They just come naturally.”

Related Characters: Sunny Nwazue (speaker), Anatov (speaker), Orlu, Chichi, Sasha
Related Symbols: Sunny’s Albinism
Page Number: 117
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

“If you’d have all perished, we’d have found you and your bodies would have been returned to your parents with…explanation,” Kehinde said.

Sunny’s mouth fell open. What kind of barbaric coldhearted man was this?

“Come now,” Kehinde said, pulling out a newspaper. He shook it at them. “Have you seen the news lately? If you haven’t noticed, a person’s life, especially a young person’s, isn’t worth much these days. The world is bigger than all of you. Chances have to be taken. But thankfully, here you are.”

Related Characters: Kehinde (speaker), Sunny Nwazue, Orlu, Chichi, Sasha, Black Hat Otokoto
Page Number: 132
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

“Teamwork is the only reason you four lived to see Kehinde,” Anatov said. “There are seriously unsafe places in Leopard Knocks. Places where people try to steal chittim instead of earning it. Where they have forgotten why they receive chittim in the first place. Knowledge is more valuable than the chittim it earns.”

Related Characters: Anatov (speaker), Sunny Nwazue, Orlu, Chichi, Sasha, Black Hat Otokoto, Kehinde
Page Number: 148-149
Explanation and Analysis:

“The second and third are the university, for true scholars. Third levelers, Ndibus, who want to keep evolving.”

“My mother goes there,” Chichi said proudly. “She’s one of the younger students, though.”

“Younger?” Chichi’s mother was about her mother’s age.

“It’s not like with Lambs,” Orlu said. “Age is one of the requirements to even start at the Obi University of Pre-Scholars. You have to be over forty-two.”

Related Characters: Sunny Nwazue (speaker), Orlu (speaker), Chichi (speaker), Sasha, Sunny’s Mother, Chichi’s Mother
Page Number: 159
Explanation and Analysis:

“You expect us to capture this Black Hat, who is like you, one of these people who has passed the highest of the highest level of juju ability? That’s—I mean no disrespect—” She paused, the irritation that had been brewing in her for weeks suddenly flaring bright. She felt used. “That’s insane! And—and I’m beginning to know how you people think! You’ll just find some other kids to do it if we’re all murdered! And why am I included in this?! I don’t know anything!”

“This is bigger than you,” Taiwo said, turning very serious. “But you’re part of it, too. It would be unfair for me to expect you to understand this just yet, but you will.”

Related Characters: Sunny Nwazue (speaker), Taiwo (speaker), Orlu, Chichi, Sasha, Black Hat Otokoto
Page Number: 170
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

“Listen. It was your grandmother, Ozoemena, who taught Otokoto all he knows. She was his mentor. And it was Otokoto who killed your grandmother in a ritual to steal her abilities as he stole her life. You want to know why he is so powerful? All you need to look at is who your grandmother was and who Otokoto was before he became the infamous Black Hat.”

Related Characters: Sugar Cream (speaker), Sunny Nwazue, Black Hat Otokoto, Sunny’s Grandmother/Ozoemena
Page Number: 190-191
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

“Your parents born here?”

“Yeah,” she said.

“Then you from here and there. Dual thing, you know?”

She laughed. “If you say so.”

“I know so.”

“So what’s that make me, then?”

“Who cares?” he said. “You want a juju knife, right?”

Related Characters: Sunny Nwazue (speaker), Junk Man (speaker), Sunny’s Mother, Sunny’s Father
Page Number: 218
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

“You’re neck-deep in Leopard society right now. The good thing is that it doesn’t get any deeper than this. Sometimes it’s best to just jump in. Then, after that first shock, you can handle anything.”

“Yeah,” she said, wiping her eyes again. “I—I got my juju knife today, too.”

“That’s wonderful,” he said. He looked down at her. “Use it well and true. There are more valuable things in life than safety and comfort. Learn. You owe it to yourself. All this”—he motioned around them—“you’ll get used to in time.”

Related Characters: Sunny Nwazue (speaker), Miknikstic/The Man (speaker)
Page Number: 228-229
Explanation and Analysis:

“Why didn’t they stop it?”

“Because life doesn’t work that way,” Anatov said. “When things get bad, they don’t stop until you stop the badness—or die.” He paused. “That’s an important lesson for all of you. This is why I brought you here. This is why you’re staying in that hotel. Look around, listen, and learn. This is not a holiday. In a month, you will all be facing something as ugly as what these two men faced this afternoon.”

Related Characters: Sasha (speaker), Anatov (speaker), Sunny Nwazue, Orlu, Chichi, Black Hat Otokoto, Miknikstic/The Man, Sayé
Page Number: 242
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

One of the other boys in white laughed and said something in a language she didn’t understand. Two other boys in white laughed hard, too. There was a rise in the chatter from the audience. She was used to ridicule, but this hurt more than usual. This wasn’t just about her being albino, this was about her being a girl—an ugly girl. Stupid boys. Stupid, blockhead, idiot boys, she thought.

Related Characters: Sunny Nwazue, Godwin, Ibou
Related Symbols: Sunny’s Albinism
Page Number: 256
Explanation and Analysis:

“That was amazing, o!” Godwin exclaimed.

“Did you see her?” Kouty exclaimed.

“Like Pele!” Sasha shouted.

The French speakers were shouting in French.

And chittim rained on us all.

The white team looked half as happy, and less than half as much chittim fell around them. They gathered and calmly slapped hands, turning to look at the green team celebrating its loss.

Related Characters: Sasha (speaker), Godwin (speaker), Sunny Nwazue, Ibou
Page Number: 262
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

“How many chittim fell when it was over?”

“Seven coppers,” Orlu mumbled. “We could have gotten people killed and we got paid for it.”

“As a group you made a mistake and you learned you could also right it,” Anatov said.

Related Characters: Orlu (speaker), Anatov (speaker), Sunny Nwazue, Chichi, Sasha
Page Number: 283
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

“No one is willing to push the envelope. So what if she called up a damn Mmuo Aku and it went wild! She still did it! She still performed the most sophisticated juju any of them had ever seen.”

“True, but you’re wrong,” Orlu said. “We can’t live in chaos. The ages are set for each level for a reason. You can be able to do something and not be mature enough to deal with the consequences.”

Related Characters: Orlu (speaker), Sasha (speaker), Sunny Nwazue, Chichi, Anatov
Page Number: 286
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

“You’ve made good progress, Sunny,” Anatov said.

“Thanks.”

“What I’d like you to think about, though, is who you are. Because within that knowledge is the key to how much you can learn.”

She frowned, thinking about what had just happened with her mother. “Oga,” she whispered, “these days I don’t really think I know who I am.” Anatov was silent. “What do you know of my grandmother? Who was she?”

Related Characters: Sunny Nwazue (speaker), Anatov (speaker), Sunny’s Mother, Sunny’s Grandmother/Ozoemena
Page Number: 299
Explanation and Analysis:

Sunny frowned. “You mean you’ve sent other groups like ours? And—”

“We have and will continue to until Black Hat is taken down,” Yaboko said. “More is at stake than your lives.”

“Black Hat is a shrewd sorcerer,” Abok said. “He has protection, but we have watched for loopholes. The children that returned maimed but alive were all rescued by Oha covens.”

“Did the rescuers escape, too?” she asked.

None of the scholars replied. That was answer enough.

Related Characters: Sunny Nwazue (speaker), Abok (speaker), Orlu, Chichi, Sasha, Black Hat Otokoto
Page Number: 310
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

“You come any closer and you’ll ruin what’s already in motion. Then I’ll have to slaughter you two instead of just these children. Get outside,” Black Hat said. Then he seemed to be speaking to someone else. “You all may leave, too. These kids are harmless. Go watch for real threats,” he said. All the commotion and squawking behind Sunny instantly stopped as the bush souls obeyed.

Related Characters: Black Hat Otokoto (speaker), Sunny Nwazue, Orlu, Chichi, Sasha
Page Number: 319
Explanation and Analysis:

On instinct, Sunny let her spirit face move forward. In that moment, her fear of everything left her—her fear of Ekwensu’s evil, of being flayed alive by the monster’s fronds, of her family learning of her death, of the world’s end. It all evaporated. Sunny smiled. She knew how the world would end. She knew that someday she would die. She knew her family would live on if she died right now. And she realized that she knew Ekwensu.

And Sunny hated her.

Related Characters: Sunny Nwazue, Black Hat Otokoto, Ekwensu
Page Number: 326
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 21 Quotes

“Grandma,” she whispered. As the old blind woman at the council meeting had said, Sunny looked nothing like her. But what did that matter? She smiled to herself and carefully put the picture back in the box.

Related Characters: Sunny Nwazue (speaker), Sunny’s Grandmother/Ozoemena, Abok
Related Symbols: Sunny’s Albinism
Page Number: 345
Explanation and Analysis: