Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky (Tristan Strong, 1)

 

From the Publisher:

Best-selling author Rick Riordan presents Kwame Mbalia's epic fantasy, a middle grade American Gods set in a richly-imagined world populated with African American folk heroes and West African gods.

Seventh grader Tristan Strong feels anything but strong ever since he failed to save his best friend when they were in a bus accident together. All he has left of Eddie is the journal his friend wrote stories in. Tristan is dreading the month he's going to spend on his grandparents' farm in Alabama, where he's being sent to heal from the tragedy. But on his first night there, a sticky creature shows up in his bedroom and steals Eddie's notebook. Tristan chases after it--is that a doll?--and a tug-of-war ensues between them underneath a Bottle Tree. In a last attempt to wrestle the journal out of the creature's hands, Tristan punches the tree, accidentally ripping open a chasm into the MidPass, a volatile place with a burning sea, haunted bone ships, and iron monsters that are hunting the inhabitants of this world. Tristan finds himself in the middle of a battle that has left black American folk heroes John Henry and Brer Rabbit exhausted. In order to get back home, Tristan and these new allies will need to entice the god Anansi, the Weaver, to come out of hiding and seal the hole in the sky. But bartering with the trickster Anansi always comes at a price.

Can Tristan save this world before he loses more of the things he loves?

My Thoughts:

The publishers call this a middle grade American Gods (Neil Gaiman), but this is a "Rick Riordan presents" so I will sell this as a centrifugal book spinning from or returning back to Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series. True, Tristan is not half god, but when he enters Alke, he will find out that he brings powers with him passed down from his Nana as well as his best friend Eddie. 

Like Riordan's books, a new generation of readers are introduced or re-introduced to heroes and gods of the past, except these are African American folk heroes and West African gods. I recognized some of the characters from folk tales that are still shared with young students, like John Henry with his mighty hammer and Brer Rabbit (currently most known outside of the African American community as part of the Disney ride Splash Mountain - based on Song of the South), as well as Anansi the trickster. But what this book adds is more depth and complexity to even the familiar characters. This book will ensure that these characters stay present with this new generation and hopefully, this book will lead young readers back to the original stories to find out more about Nyame or Nyambe, the sky deity from South Gana, Gum Baby and even Maafa. 

Two of these, Alke (which is the world he lands in) and Maafa intrigued me enough to look them up. What I found was interesting in that perhaps Alke may perhaps represent Africa, but it is also interesting that there is an Alke in Greek mythology and was one of the Amazonians (like Wonder Woman?). Finally, when I looked up Maafa as the source of the malevolence in Alke, I found that Maafa refers to the Black Holocaust, a Kiswahili term for disaster, calamity, or terrible occurrence. It is the term used to describe the Trans-Atlantic slave trade/middle passage, which is why when it finally appears, it looks like a ship and also why the creatures that come from the Maafa to capture the folks in Alke are rusting fetterlings that look like slave shackles. I have more to explore based on the references in this book, but that just shows that the adventure and Tristan himself are motivation to read this, but also as an adult, this tween book gives me a great starting place to do my own research. 

Follow this book with Percy Jackson or if you want to go back to a more "canonical"/centripetal book, read or reread the Narnia series by C.S. Lewis (It starts with The Magicians's Nephew but most children have seen and are more familiar with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe book 2). There is also a second Tristan Strong book out now, Tristan Strong Destroys the World.