A review by mrswhiteinthelibrary
Root Magic by Eden Royce

adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Eden Royce's middle grade novel, Root Magic, is an ambitious melding of historical and fantasy fiction, depicting the very real struggles of Black people in the 1960s, the Gullah people specifically, and those of "root workers", and those of people who practiced root magic, sometimes known as hoodoo, through a fantastical lens. While root magic was a real practice, this fictionalized account blends both the actual practices of potion brewing and folk tradition with sentient dolls, curses, boo hags, haints, and more. Based on the negative depictions of these practices in most media, having this positive interpretation of root as something that connects Black people to their ancestry, and works to protect them fro both magical forces and the very real forces of racism and hatred, is wonderfully counter cultural, going deeper into the subject than other recent works exploring this idea (notably, Legendborn). Still, for all of its ambition and weaving together of complex ideas, Root Magic falls a little flat. This is primarily the story of eleven year old Jezebel, our heroine who clearly has an aptitude for magic, and her adventures during the first year of learning magic. There is not much of an overarching plot, and Jezebel's journey into womanhood is clearly paralleled in that of her adventures in root. Along the way she learns compassion, friendship, and solves a lifelong mystery that has haunted her family. This is all fine, and ably executed, but I still felt by the end like I didn't have a firm grasp of root. I also wished some of the ideas (her brother's feelings of inadequacy, his growing relationship to other boys his age) had been explored further. But this is a perfectly good middle grade book doing important cultural heavy lifting, and I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoyed works like Akata Witch or Amari and the Night Brothers without much hesitation, even if it never quite reaches those heights.