Name: Zahrah the Windseeker
ISBN: 9780547020280

Nnedi Okorafor

Zahrah Tsami, a timid thirteen-year-old girl, undertakes a dangerous quest into the Forbidden Greeny Jungle to seek the antidote for her best friend after he is bitten by a snake, and finds knowledge, courage, and hidden powers along the way. Reprint.

Zahrah the Windseeker

Janice Hopper

Mildly spoilery discussion below:

What a lovely little book this is! Zahrah, born with dada hair (special hair with vines growing among it), has to save her friend Dari after he is bitten by a poisonous snake. To do this, she has to go into the Forbidden Greeny Jungle and find an unfertilized egg from an elgort. The elgort is the most deadly and terrifying beast in the jungle. It seems an impossible quest....

The story has a bit of an Alice-in-Wonderland feel, but with a very different sensibility. Zahrah meets many different creatures, both benign and malign. She also has to face herself, her doubts and her strengths, and grow.

It's a very girl-positive book, and I liked Zahrah. The only part I found less compelling was Zahrah continually saying how frightened and incapable she was, how dangerous the jungle was, and how unlikely her quest was to end well. She was all those things, and yes, the jungle was scary, but seriously, was there ever really any doubt about the outcome? Not to me. It's not that kind of book. So all those bits seemed a little pro forma for me: we have to show her uncertainty, so that we can show her growth.

But it's still good. There's a wealth of invention and and description that I loved here. And when you get past the sad whiny bits, you really do see how Zahrah grows, and you see hints of what she may become. Good stuff.