The sequel to this book, Bones at the Crossroads, is about to be released, but I’m hoping there’s enough left here in this universe for at least a trilogy. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot in here, and I finished the book pretty satisfied in the departments of action, adventure, and getting to know the characters. But what we have here is not just a good book – it’s a breath of fresh and invigorating air for its too-often-overlooked target audience. When you have a world as fresh as this, you can’t help but hope it doesn’t go away too fast.
Malik Baron is a teen jumping from home to home in Alabama, where the author is from. He used to be with his darling mother, but seven years ago, during a firework party, she got surrounded by these strange people in dark robes and tried to take her away. Malik ended up doing something that killed all those men, but her mom was never found. Since then he’s been ostracized by his old community. His only family is his twelve-year-old best friend Taye.
Well, it seems that not only is his mother perhaps alive, but Malik has special powers that get him enrolled at a special place called Caiman University, a post-secondary education school specifically for black people…in a different dimension only accessible by magic. And he has a grandma named Mama Aya who’s a legend, and almost as old as Harriet Tubman but still kicking proud. Malik makes new friends and even reunites with a long lost one, as he adapts to what he can do and what he can get away with, as well as figuring out what really happened all those years ago and what the adults aren’t telling him.
Blood at the Root is a book proud of the Black community and proud of its established slang. Its first-person present-time perspective gives us a precise look into Malik’s mind and the world around him, and the language just rolls off our eyes so smoothly, feeling fresh but not overwhelming for newcomers. We feel not just like this is a real community – we feel welcomed into it too.
Malik is also a refreshingly moody sort of protagonist. He’s distrusting, short-fused, scared, and protective of Taye and the people in his life he truly loves. You get the vibe he’s still grieving the loss of his mother after all these years (like most people would), and sick of the way the world has treated him as a black kid. I was surprised how much language Malik was willing to give authority figures, especially Chancellor Taron. Can you imagine cursing out your school principal or college dean? More than once? It’s possible this book is stretching how much trouble someone can truly get in, even if they have legendary blood.
Anyway, LaDarrion Williams gives not just Malik but the rest of the book a refreshing ferocity – we learn about the Haitian Revolution, where people of colour were able to take back their land from slave owners, and we hear stories of the character’s ancestors killing slave hunters, and I’m unashamed to say the pride these characters had in their predecessors executing horrible people made my soul smile. I’ve read a book or two – I am horrified by the way black people have been treated throughout history.
The magic is also a lot of fun, especially when it gets out of control. Some books have very regulated magic where there are only certain kinds people can do. Others are more liberal with how much everyone is capable of, and this is one of them. Gives a good excuse for the action to go pleasantly bonkers. There’s also a fair bit of LGBTQ representation I loved. Malik’s bisexual roommate and his boyfriend are definitely not shy about being together, and that leads to more than a few “Awww” moments.
The book feels about 50 pages too long, and the stories are a bit scattered, but said stories – of a grieving teenage boy wanting to find his perhaps-alive mother, and a strange group out to kill them – are more than involving enough for me not to care. Whenever I picked up Blood at the Root, I was excited to see what was next.
LaDarrion Williams set out to make a Percy-Jackson Hunger-Games type of book with a black kid at its centre with the affection of black culture that is sorely missing from this genre, and that is exactly what he made. People of colour will love the world geared passionately towards them, others will enjoy the edgy point of view, and everyone will enjoy the story of an outsider learning his true worth.
My grade: 4 and a half stars out of 5
William J. McGinn 
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