How You Grow Wings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
An award-winning, "unforgettable" novel for fans of Ibi Zoboi and Erika L. Sánchez (SLJ, starred review) about two sisters when the line between family and foe is blurred.
Sisters Cheta and Zam couldn’t be more different. Cheta, sharp-tongued and stubborn, never shies away from conflict—either at school or at home, where her mother fires abuse at her. Timid Zam escapes most of her mother’s anger, skating under the radar and avoiding her sister whenever possible.
In a lucky turn, Zam is invited to live in her aunt’s luxurious home. Jealous, Cheta also leaves home, but to a hard existence that will drive her to terrible decisions. When the sisters are reunited, Zam alone sees just how far Cheta has fallen—and Cheta’s fate is in Zam’s hands.
Kirkus Prize Finalist * Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year * An SLJ Best Book of the Year * A Children’s Africana Book Award Honor Winner * A Rise: A Feminist Book Project honoree * A Chicago Public Library Best Book of the Year * Nautilus Silver Award Winner * Amazon August Editors' pick
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Onoseta's devastatingly vulnerable debut, told nonlinearly in two teen Nigerian girls' dual perspectives, portrays a tempestuous sisterhood amid colorism, familial trauma, and financial precarity. Cheta and Zam's antithetical personalities have always put them at odds while navigating their verbally and physically abusive mother and emotionally withholding father. Confident and stubborn Cheta receives the brunt of their mother's ire, and is increasingly resentful of her younger sister Zam, who avoids confrontation at all costs. When only Zam is invited to live with wealthy family members in Abuja, the promise of freedom and comfort for only one sister widens the rift between them. As the siblings traverse their own paths—Zam in Abuja and Cheta, who fled following Zam's departure to live with friends, in Benin City—they each reflect on and reconcile with the hurt, loneliness, and uncertainty they were forced to live through. Onoseta uses visceral prose to sensitively depict Zam and Cheta's home life and the abuse they endured. The teens' complicated familial relationships, further ravaged by wealth disparities and societal presumptions, presents an arresting look at two girls embarking on diverging futures in a character-driven story that promises—and delivers—hope for a brighter tomorrow. Ages 14–up.
