Abeni's Song

A fascinating start to a series of fantasy stories set in an Africa that never was, but could be. Abeni is a young girl soon to come of age whose village is her whole world. But the harvest celebrations that year would be interrupted by the arrival of the village's witch, who has warned them that evil is coming. But her warnings were ignored: evil has come and captures the village's inhabitants, with only Abeni and the witch escaping.

Living with the witch, Abeni learns to live a new life, but yearns to learn the witch's magic and fighting skills, so that she can go to free her village folk. But an attack interrupts her training, and now she and the witch (in a new, reduced body) must make a journey to the witch's sister for help.

Along the way, Abeni would gather a group of spirits, and adventure through danger and strange lands. And at the sister's place, they would discover that evil has already arrived. But that would not prepare them for the discovery about the true nature of the monsters they find.

After an initial lengthy 'growing up' phase, the story begins to become interesting as Abeni meets and interacts with various forest sprits, both helpful and dangerous. She also grows up fast and learns the meaning of friendship and of not hiding secrets from your friends if you plan to go into danger together. But perhaps the biggest message is in how we should treat fellow humans. For must of the evil that Abeni encounters in the story did not start out evil, but became so through mistreatment.

At the end, Abeni achieves some objectives, but her quest to free her village folk from the evil is not over.

Abeni’s Song is the middle-grade debut of P. Djèlí Clark — an author whose adult works I’ve very much enjoyed. Continuing in the trend, I really enjoyed the world of spirits and adventure created here. Abeni is a protagonist who is young and very much still trying to figure out who she is, and when tragedy strikes that process is interrupted by grieving for what she’s lost. Her relationship with Asha was endearing and convincingly fraught for the situation, as well as the additional friendships she forms along the way. The ways Abeni grows, sometimes in the wrong ways and eventually correcting that, was very satisfying to see unfold. Her story is only just beginning in this book, clearly setting up for a series. Not resolving everything that occurred in this book worked well to keep the pacing from being too breakneck and the resolution from feeling too simplistic, I think. I look forward to seeing the next stages of Abeni’s journey in following books.