BUCKHEAD

A young Nigerian gamer mods up with his friends to rescue the residents of his new town from Ewon, a spirit from Yoruba history.

Toba Adekunle has recently moved to the United States from Lagos because of his mother’s job. His parents visited sites in Nigeria in order to create the Elseverse, a virtual reality system meant to preserve Nigerian history. However, his father became trapped inside the platform after he encountered an unknown intelligence in one of the ruins of the Edo Kingdom. Toba’s mother hopes that by relocating to rural Washington state to work for the company that wanted to develop VR tourism from their data, she might find a way to save her husband. Toba becomes friends with several other new transplants to Buckhead Middle School—Josue, Romy, and Mel—as well as Darsha, a local girl. After strange events occur, they enter the Elseverse through a new operating system and learn that residents of Buckhead are being controlled by Ewon, who was a general in the Ajogun celestial army. Toba is aided in his battle to save the day by his new friends. The book uses a video game structure with sections opening with levels listing the Elseverse stats of the five friends. The dramatic, full-color illustrations enhance the intensity, highlight humorous parts of the narrative, and add to the poignancy of the racially diverse young people’s friendships.

A thrilling Afrofuturist adventure told through a video gamer’s lens.