book cover

Wolf Light

by Yaba Badoe

Interest age: 12 to 18
Reading age: 11+

Published by Head of Zeus, 2019

  • Around the world
  • Fantasy

About this book

Born in three very different places in the world (Ghana, Cornwall and Mongolia), Zula, Adoma and Linet are nevertheless sisters. Tied together by a magical bond and with the loving support of their elders, they must defeat the skinwalkers who threaten the world. But as well as having supernatural powers, the three girls are also ordinary teenagers, and love, anger and their histories will challenge them along the way.

Throughout, this book is written in a magical realist style. The narrative flows across three places, stories and voices. At the same time, the main characters are able to be present in each other’s worlds using a kind of magical telepathy, with the rules for this never precisely defined. This does mean that Wolf Light is at times likely to be a struggle for younger readers to follow, especially in the early chapters.

For older teenage – and indeed adult – readers, Wolf Light is a challenging and unconventional work of literary fantasy that disrupts expectations. At its best, it sketches out potential pathways for a new children’s literature that truly reflects our international and interconnected world.

About the author

Yaba Badoe is an award-winning Ghanaian-British documentary filmmaker and writer. A graduate of King's College Cambridge, she has taught in Spain, Jamaica and Ghana. Her short stories for adults have been published in Critical Quarterly and in African Love Stories: An Anthology, edited by Ama Ata Aidoo. In 2014 Yaba was nominated for the Distinguished Woman of African Cinema award.

Her debut novel, A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars, published by Zephyr, was shortlisted for the Branford Boase Award 2018 and has been nominated for the 2019 Carnegie Medal. Yaba is based in London.

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