The Rise of Issa Igwe

August 1, 2024
Grades 3-7 Book two in the Tatterly series focuses on the resilient 12-year-old Issa Igwe. A member of the Tatterly family through her mother, Issa comes from a long line of Bika practitioners (Bika, rooted in African magic, relies on ancestors for power). Issa's parents often travel for work, leaving her in the care of her powerful aunties. Afraid that Issa's education might be suffering, they enroll her in the Siren School, the strictest academy on the East Coast for magical girls. There, Issa befriends roommate Mayra, other classmates, and even a ghost boy. When tragedy upends Issa's world, she becomes determined to turn back time. Issa immerses herself in her magical studies, desperate to learn how to time travel; a sinister headmistress threatens to stop her from succeeding. The school, an old plantation, serves as a creepy setting in this intriguing southern gothic tale for kids. Issa's tenacity and unfaltering determination will inspire readers. Miles weaves a fascinating story celebrating friendship and Black culture.

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Starred review from August 15, 2024
All is definitely not right at Issa's new boarding school. Issa has been forcibly enrolled by her concerned but often absent parents at the Siren School, a finishing academy for witches--a consequence of becoming temporarily possessed by an angry ghost at her public school. This event, while no real surprise for Issa, could have led to dangerous public knowledge that she's a rare conduit for spirits. Rumors of deaths at the new school turn out to be all too accurate...plus, whatever is growing in the belly of Headmistress Serena is decidedlynot a human baby. Issa's aversion to the school takes a radical shift, though, when news of a devastating family tragedy sets her on wildly dangerous (and rightfully forbidden) inquiries into ways of cheating death. Sharing several members of a magically gifted extended family with Miles'The Fall of the House of Tatterly (2023), as well as the same sublime blend of humor and horror, this companion volume pitches its determined Black lead into encounters with terrifying foes and surprising allies--some living, some dead, and one pesky boy who's not quite either. Better yet, along with being the delightful sort of school where feline familiars stroll through walls and Salome's spellbinding dance is taught in anatomy class, the Siren School turns out to be a place where Issa finds real friends at last while coming away stronger in both self-command and in connections to her ancestral heritage. Chills and chortle-worthy twists mix in happy abandon.(Paranormal. 8-12)

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