14 Mar / Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani [in School Library Journal]
In Robin Miles’s rich, rhythmic narration, Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani’s (I Do Not Come to You By Chance) latest – written in chapters that are sometimes just a few lines – sounds like verse poetry. The story is hardly soothing, based on interviews with 2014 Boko Haram kidnapping victims.
In her life before, Nwaubani’s teen protagonist was often called “Ya Ta,” “my daughter,” a treasured only girl among five brothers. A prominent scholarship she’d recently won meant a promising future. But then her village is besieged, family and neighbors slaughtered.
Stolen away, she’s systematically broken down – physically, ideologically, spiritually. Her new name, Salamatu, Arabic for safety, cannot protect her from predation. Even as she witnesses her best friend’s inculcation into radicalized violence, she clings to her own truths, her own survival.
From young girls to older women, kind relatives to brutal abusers, Miles effortlessly adapts tone, pitch, intonation, and accent to accommodate Nwaubani’s diverse cast, and then adjusts again for the final hour as she intones Italian journalist Viviana Mazza’s lengthy afterword, a context-rich overview of the horrifying tragedy.
Verdict: Inarguably a challenge to read on the page or in the ears, this nevertheless proves a worthy, perspective-broadening addition to YA collections.
Review: “Media,” Xpress Reviews, School Library Journal, February 1, 2019
Readers: Young Adult
Published: 2018