Discover a stunning middle grade fantasy about a boy hurled into the Ghanaian underworld to help his grandmother save humanity, perfect for fans of Tristan Strong and Amari and the Night Brothers.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Craig Kofi Farmer’s Kwame Crashes the Underworld, which is out September 10th 2024.
Twelve-year-old Kwame Powell isn’t ready to deal with losing his grandmother, even as he and his family head to Ghana for her celebration of life.
He’s definitely not ready when he’s sucked into a magical whirlpool that leads straight to Asamando, the Ghanaian underworld. There, he comes face to face with his grandmother, who is very much alive, and somehow still…a kid? Together with his best friend, Autumn, and a talkative aboatia named Woo, Kwame must battle angry nature gods, and stop the underworld from destroying the land of the living.
But there’s an even bigger problem: Only living souls can leave Asamando. In order to save the mortal world and return home, Kwame will need to find the courage to do the bravest thing of all — learn how to say goodbye.
“The children of the Earth shall perish,” Ama mutters to herself. “Whether by the banes of the sea, banes of the farm, or banes of the woods.”
I blink. “Cryptic.”
The girl looks at the dashiki in my hands, and then back up to me. A shadow has fallen over her face, and a myriad of emotions flip through her eyes. She goes from surprised, to happy, to worried . . . to scared.
“Neither of you should be here,” Ama says, craning her neck to look behind me. She quickly ushers me, Autumn, and Woo farther into the building. “At least, not yet.”
I frown. “Not yet?”
Ama closes the door behind us, shutting us off from the commotion outside. “No. In fact, neither of you should be here for another eighty years or so.”
My mind cycles through a few possible explanations for what might be going on:
a) She’s mistaking me for somebody else. Maybe her friend, who looks just like me and somehow has the same name, told her he was running to the store and that he’d be back . . . in eighty or so years.
b) We’re in the Matrix, and it’s starting to glitch. I wonder where Autumn and I could get those sweet coats and sunglasses. Will we meet Keanu Reeves?
c) This entire experience is an extremely elaborate virtual-reality game show, and at any moment I’m going to be told I’ve won a brand-new car. Knowing Ma, she’d probably say I’m too young for a car and coopt my prize for herself.
d) Autumn and I have somehow time traveled to the future and met someone we know down the road. That, however, raises more questions than it answers. Does that break reality? Are these Back to the Future rules or Avengers: Endgame rules?
I can ask her about any of these possibilities. I can ask her what she means or come up with some clever response. I can circle back to get some clarity on what’s going on with that creepy banes-of-the-sea thing.
I don’t get the chance to do any of these. The girl regards me for a few more seconds, and suddenly explodes with emotion. She rushes forward and pulls me in a bone-crushing hug.
“My baby,” Ama cries. “I can’t believe you’re here!”
“Uu-nnh,” I groan. Her grip’s somehow becoming even tighter. My back cracks in places I didn’t even know existed. “Ow!”
Ama releases me and places her hands all over my face— pulling at my cheeks, tugging my ears, grabbing my nose. She smells like cocoa and mint.
“Uh . . .” I just stare at her. I want to be uncomfortable with this stranger touching my face, but there is something about her that seems so familiar.
Ama’s eyes become glossy once more. Her eyes drink in every detail of me, as if she’s on a game show and this is her one chance to memorize what I look like before she has to answer a quiz about my face.
I glance at Autumn. Her jaw is practically to the floor as she watches this exchange. I figure this is the closest she’s ever seen me to a girl—you know, a girl that’s not her.
“You—you’re—” Ama leans back and squeezes my slender arms. “You’re so skinny.”
“What?” I ask, before wincing at the strength of her grip. “Ow.”
“Now that I think about it, you’ve always been skinny,” Ama surmises, frowning. She no longer looks happy to see me. “What have you been eating? What is your mother doing to my sweet Kwame?!”
Before I can answer, a bell sounds throughout the building. I hear waves of commotion as people start to take their seats in the auditorium. Ama peeks into the building and sets her jaw, as if she’s just come to a decision.
“Come with me.” Ama grabs our wrists and pulls us through the fluorescent hallway. On one side of the wall are huge portraits of other Queen Mothers, labeled with the names, villages, and dates from all throughout history. On our right-hand side are recurring openings into the auditorium, like different gates at a baseball stadium.
Autumn stiffens and pulls against Ama’s grip. “Wait—” she says out loud. “Who are you?”
Ama stops and turns toward us once more. She’s adopted a motherly expression—stern eyes, tight lips, and a disapproving frown.
“I suppose neither of you would know what I looked like when I was this age,” Ama mutters to herself. She trains her mocha-brown eyes onto us. “My name is Ama. And Kwame, that’s my dashiki that you’re holding. I am—was—your grandmother.”
The bustle from the auditorium fades into white noise. I can suddenly feel every fiber, every stitch of the dashiki in my hand. I tighten my grip on it as I stare at the girl.
Grandma. The girl in front of me is young . . . not like the old, frail woman I remember. I was eleven years old the last time Ma took me to Grandma’s Netflix-less, Wi-Fi desert of an apartment.
Suddenly, I find myself replaying every single one of the stories Grandma used to tell me—stories of gods who wove webs of deceit, and of monsters that went bump in the night. I remember the fake fisherwoman telling me that Grandma was a Queen Mother . . . and now I’m standing in front of this girl who has a Queen Mother pin.
I look at Autumn, and her face is ashen. Without the noise of the festival outside, she seems to have heard Ama’s claim perfectly.
My eyes fall to the dashiki in my hand. Grandma had stitched illustrations of my palm print into the dashiki, personalizing it to me. And yet, I haven’t worn it—in public or private. Now this very alive girl in front of me is claiming that she is my very dead grandmother—and the creator of this dashiki.
Maybe this entire thing is a dream, all in my imagination. My science teacher claimed that dreams were manifestations of the subconscious. Still—what does it say about my subconscious that I’m dreaming about my grandma when she was a kid?
“But my grandma is . . . dead,” I sputter.
“Yes.” Ama’s eyes harden as if I just insulted her. She turns and continues walking down the bright hallway.
I wait for Ama to give up the con. I wait for her to admit to being a fraud, like one of those spiritual mediums who wander Cape Fear Pier and claim they can reach your deceased family members for the low, low price of $29.99.
Ama, however, doesn’t seem discouraged or flustered by the news of her own death. Instead, she treats the news like a reminder that she has to take out the trash.
I stare at her. “All right. If you are my grandmother, then how are you standing in front of me?”
Ama stops and stares at me. “We are in Asamando, my child. The underworld for those who lived with the spirit of Ghana in them. And we need to get you and Autumn out of here immediately.”
