Children of Blood and Bone, a The New York Times best-seller will now be developed by Lucasfilm for Disney.
Here’s something that I think a lot of people may find interesting. Lucasfilm, on it’s journey to revive all of its old IP, has decided to taken on a rather new project in the form of Children of Blood and Bone, a 2018 young adult fantasy novel by Nigerian-American novelist Tomi Adeyemi which is about heroine Zélie Adebola as she attempts to restore magic to the kingdom of Orïsha, following the ruling class kosidáns’ brutal suppression of the class of magic practitioners Zélie belongs to, the maji.
I was interested to see why Lucasfilm would want to make an adaptation on this relatively new book (and the cover art caught my eye), so I did some digging and learned why. The concept and plot of the book is quite interesting, taking inspiration from the likes of Shadowshaper, An Ember in the Ashes, Harry Potter & Avatar: The Last Airbender, the latter two I really enjoyed, but adds Western Africa mythology and Yoruba culture into the mix. It’s something new that we don’t get a lot of and thus, combined with a great story and narrative, made it quite successful, landing it on the New York Times best-seller 77 weeks in a row. So I can see why Lucasfilm would be interested in this book.
Aside from that, the other clear reason is for diversity sake. Like I’ve always said, I’m all for diversity if it’s done right, and this for me is a step in the right direction. Tomi Adeyemi did what I’ve always said people should do, if you want representation, go out and make it happen. Create a character and tell a great story and people will flock to support it, and that’s what Tomi Adeyemi did. So, I’ll be definitely keeping my eye on this project to see where it goes in the future.
