Topic 5: Alternating Point of View

[Lafayette Public Library]

Why do you think the author tells the story from three viewpoints with three different voices? How are the voices different from one another? How would it be different with a single narrator? Why use first-person voices? Why do you think Tzain doesn’t narrate a part of the story?

[Imani]

It is important to understand how one single event can affect people differently.

[Anna]

I agree with Imani - the alternating points of view help readers understand the story from different perspectives. In a story like this one, that's so important.

Zelie was raised outside of the palace walls by parents who loved her and with a brother who protected her at all costs. After her maji mother's murder, Zelie continued to be taught by Mama Agba to love and appreciate magic and where her people came from.

On the other hand, Inan and Amari were raised by a father who, although he believed he was protecting them, forced them to fight one another in order to be stronger. They were raised to be fearful of maji and diviners because King Saran told them his first family had been murdered by those with magic. Then, despite having grown up with that set of beliefs, Amari's perspective changes when she witnesses the murder of her best friend Binta, a maji, at the hands of King Saran.

Inan's stance flip-flops throughout the book because, although he feels that magic should be destroyed in Orisha, he learns that he is a maji himself. He also comes to love Zelie, making those decisions to continue helping his father destroy Orisha's magic even more difficult.

Without those different perspectives, we as readers would have a biased view of a story that lends itself so well to these deep discussions.

[Katelin]

I'm honestly not the biggest fan of alternating points of view, but there are situations where it makes the book better. Children of Blood and Bone is one of those books that needs the different points of view to feel like a complete story.

Not only are we getting different perspectives, but Inan's chapters add a lot of intensity to the other characters' journey. When Inan figured out where they were just from a comment about the price of water, I wanted to yell at them to hurry up and get the stone and get out.

[Connie]

I'm with Katelin in that I'm typically not a fan of alternating points of view. I'm also not usually a fan of first person pov either, but there are definitely some authors who can pull it off properly and Tomi Adeyemi does a great job with it. I do think that a book like Children of Blood and Bone actually benefits from the alternating view points, because it allows you to get inside the character's heads. I also really enjoy seeing the same situations from differing perspectives, especially when they are so different from each other. The moments of realizations that the characters have a written very well.