"What if Harry Potter attended a HBCU?" Young Adult Fantasy book debuts on the New York Times Best Seller List (Blood at the Root)

[RamsayBolton]

Blood at the Root

A teenager on the run from his past finds the family he…

www.goodreads.com

Black boy growing up in and out of the foster system has magic powers and trauma he's trying to deal with, while also trying to look out for his family (younger brother)

A teenager on the run from his past finds the family he never knew existed and the community he never knew he needed at an HBCU for the young, Black, and magical . Enroll in this fresh fantasy debut with the emotional power of Legendborn and the redefined ancestral magic of Lovecraft Country .

Ten years ago, Malik's life changed forever the night his mother mysteriously vanished and he discovered he had uncontrollable powers. Since then, he has kept his abilities hidden, looking out for himself and his younger foster brother, Taye. Now, at 17, Malik is finally ready to start a new life for both of them, far from the trauma of his past. However, a daring act to rescue Taye reveals an unexpected connection with his long-lost a legendary conjurer with ties to a hidden magical university that Malik’s mother attended.

At Caiman University, Malik’s eyes are opened to a future he never could have envisioned for himself— one that includes the reappearance of his first love, Alexis. His search for answers about his heritage, his powers, and what really happened to his mother exposes the cracks in their magical community as it faces a reawakened evil dating back to the Haitian Revolution. Together with Alexis, Malik discovers a lot beneath the surface at feuding covens and magical politics, forbidden knowledge and buried mysteries.

In a wholly unique saga of family, history and community, Malik must embrace his legacy to save what's left of his old family as well as his new one. Exploring the roots and secrets that connect us in an unforgettable contemporary setting, this heart-pounding fantasy series opener is a rich tapestry of atmosphere, intrigue, and emotion.

I'm a few pages in



this book black as hell ngl having watched American Fiction is fukking it up a little but it's a quick read so far.

 

[The Half-Blood FKA Prince]

 

[cyndaquil]

"What if Harry Potter attended a HBCU?"

Want kinda shyt is this? Let it be its own story fukk harry potter got to do with it?

Blood at the Root is the name. Put it in the title OP

 

[Umoja]

"What if Harry Potter attended a HBCU?"

Want kinda shyt is this? Let it be its own story fukk harry potter got to do with it?

Blood at the Root is the name. Put it in the title OP

Fail to understand how promotion works brehs.

 

[cyndaquil]

Fail to understand how promotion works brehs.

Did Harry Potter promote itself as something else like "Lord of the Rings but just all the wizard stuff at school"?

No. It promoted itself as a book about a boy at a magic school. That's it.

This a book about a magic boy from foster care at a HBCU. That's it.

Be tryna spin shyt as the "black version" of this or that. The work can stand on its own. It's good enough.

 

[Space Cowboy]

It would take them months to respond to his emails and answer his phone calls.

 

[Uchiha God]

It would take them months to respond to his emails and answer his phone calls.

That’s not exclusive to HBCUs

 

[Umoja]

Did Harry Potter promote itself as something else like "Lord of the Rings but just all the wizard stuff at school"?

No. It promoted itself as a book about a boy at a magic school. That's it.

This a book about a magic boy from foster care at a HBCU. That's it.

Be tryna spin shyt as the "black version" of this or that. The work can stand on its own. It's good enough.

I'm confused.

You're asking me to go back 27 years when the series was in its infancy. Something I am prepared to do. When the books came out, it was compared to Roald Dahl.

From a literary point of view, that's what the earlier books were compared to.

Debut author and single mother sells children's book for £100,000

It sounds like a film: a single mother traipses the rainy city streets, pushing her newborn baby in its pram. With the baby asleep, she sits in cafes drinking coffee and scribbling a children's story.

www.theguardian.com

And there is an article from 1997.

 

[cyndaquil]

I'm confused.

You're asking me to go back 27 years when the series was in its infancy. Something I am prepared to do. When the books came out, it was compared to Roald Dahl.

From a literary point of view, that's what the earlier books were compared to.

Debut author and single mother sells children's book for £100,000

It sounds like a film: a single mother traipses the rainy city streets, pushing her newborn baby in its pram. With the baby asleep, she sits in cafes drinking coffee and scribbling a children's story.

www.theguardian.com

And there is an article from 1997.

Exactly. So you get it now. Dapped

 

[RamsayBolton]

"What if Harry Potter attended a HBCU?"

Want kinda shyt is this? Let it be its own story fukk harry potter got to do with it?

Blood at the Root is the name. Put it in the title OP

Title is all over the post but I added it to title

and the rest of that shyt is just marketing

 

[Umoja]

Exactly. So you get it now. Dapped

Negged.

 

[Wildin]

Why the fukk do we always have to pull ourselves out of the mud?

Why does he have to be in the foster care and taking care of his lil brother?

I get it harry potter lived with his aunt or cousin some shyt (never seen the movie or read the books).

But we can't just have regular black people. It's always dad left, mom died or some shyt.

We need more stories with just regular black families. Not a guy auntie, or gay brother, not a white dad and black mom, not a black dad working 2 jobs struggling to rent an apartment while his teenage boy discovers he has super powers.

I get it, I understand the need for plot lines and reasoning build a story but it's always some down trodden shyt even before we get to the plot.

It's never just a regular character. A black characters foundation is down trodden, already has it hard before you get to the critical point or inciting incident of the story.

 

[Space Cowboy]

That’s not exclusive to HBCUs

In my experience it is. Try to call Howard University and ask about a program. I dare you. HBCUs are known to have insane administration issues. PWI you’ll get an email back within same day or week.

 

[RamsayBolton]

Why the fukk do we always have to pull ourselves out of the mud?

Why does he have to be in the foster care and taking care of his lil brother?

I get it harry potter lived with his aunt or cousin some shyt (never seen the movie or read the books).

But we can't just have regular black people. It's always dad left, mom died or some shyt.

We need more stories with just regular black families. Not a guy auntie, or gay brother, not a white dad and black mom, not a black dad working 2 jobs struggling to rent an apartment while his teenage boy discovers he has super powers.

I get it, I understand the need for plot lines and reasoning build a story but it's always some down trodden shyt even before we get to the plot.

It's never just a regular character. A black characters foundation is down trodden, already has it hard before you get to the critical point or inciting incident of the story.

I agree in general, but there's a couple of different things at play in this situation

1. Most protagonists in these kinds of books start from nowhere/terrible situations and then find out they're super special and whatever. Thats what happens in this book, just from a low income black area

2. The area the main char is from seems to be where the author is from from what I glanced at, though this could be an American Fiction situation where he's playing certain things up (like I said having watched American Fiction is messing this up a bit cause this shyt is almost ridiculously "low income black" representation, hard to tell if its authentic or not.)

3. Sad as it is, there are just a lot of black kids in those kinds of situations, and this book seems intended to let them experience escapism. At the start of the book is a foreword from the author talking about how black male teens don't be reading and he wonders if its because they don't see themselves represented in books, so he wrote this to do that


Basically if this was a movie or tv show by a bunch of white execs I'd be taking the same stance you are, but since its a kids book im a lot more lenient

 

[MajesticLion]

That’s not exclusive to HBCUs

Not exclusive, but endemic to the point of being axiomatic.