Children of Blood and Bone Study Guide

Tomi Adeyemi, a Nigerian-American California native, knew she wanted to write from the time she could read. In fact, Adeyemi knew that she wanted to write a young adult novel and eventually see it made into a movie—a dream she is in the process of achieving with Children of Blood and Bone. As a teenager, Adeyemi wrote hundreds of pages, but never completed a novel. As a senior in high school, moved to action by instances of police brutality against African Americans, Adeyemi got serious about writing a book that could help alleviate some of the anguish she saw in the world. She began reading writing guides, studied English at Harvard University, and solicited advice from professional authors. After graduating, Adeyemi traveled to Salvador, Brazil, where she studied West African culture and mythology on a fellowship. It was there that she gained inspiration for Children of Blood and Bone and the magical, dangerous world of Orïsha.

Instances of police brutality against people of color in America catalyzed Adeyemi’s debut novel, Children of Blood and Bone. In 2012, a police officer fatally shot African American high school student Trayvon Martin as he was walking home from a convenience store. In 2015, Freddie Gray, a young black man, died from injuries sustained when police arrested him, allegedly for possessing a knife. Despite murder chargers, juries acquitted the police officers involved in these situations. Incidents like these sparked protests and catalyzed the Black Lives Matter movement, which is in part aimed at combatting police violence towards African Americans. Many more similar incidents have happened just since the time Adeyemi began her novel in 2017. The injustice of these events and the fear they can inspire in young African American people are paralleled in the world of Children of Blood and Bone.

Adeyemi’s young adult fantasy novel, Children of Blood and Bone, is a conscious pushback to the prevailing whiteness of so-called staples of the genre, as well as a reaction to those who reject the introduction of more diverse characters into young adult fiction. When Adeyemi was a teenager, she watched as fans of The Hunger Games books opposed the casting of a black actor to play the character Rue. Adeyemi realized that the genre, as well as readers of color who had to search for representation, were suffering. Rather than drawing inspiration from high fantasy works like Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, which are dominated by white characters, Adeyemi looked to works of fantasy by and about other people of color to inspire Children of Blood and Bone. In particular, she points to Daniel José Older’s young adult fantasy novel Shadowshaper, which is about an African-Puerto Rican teenager, and the fantasy novel An Ember in the Ashes, by Pakistani-American writer Sabaa Tahir as the primary sources of inspiration for Children of Blood and Bone. Adeyemi also draws inspiration from her childhood love of anime, with its sweeping narratives and heroic protagonists.