53 pages • 1 hour read
B. B. AlstonAmari And The Great Game
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Series Context: B. B. Alston’s Supernatural Investigations Series
Amari and the Great Game is the second installment in B. B. Alston’s Supernatural Investigations series, which opens with Amari and the Night Brothers, published in 2021. Speaking about the inspiration for the series, Alston explains:
I was watching Men in Black one time […] and I wondered, What if it wasn’t just aliens? What if there was an agency that handled all the myths and legends, and how would it be different? [One] day, Amari popped into my head. She was a kid from my kind of background, a Black girl from modest means, and I knew how she talked and thought. I just ran with it. There weren’t a lot of fantasy books for kids with Black characters, and I was excited to write someone like that (Jones, Michael M. “Spring 2021 Flying Starts: B. B. Alston.” Publishers Weekly, 25 Jun. 2021).
Originally planned as a trilogy, the series is currently set to comprise five books in total. Amari and the Great Game (2022) is the second installment, followed by Amari and the Despicable Wonders (2024), as well as two other yet unpublished titles.
In Amari and the Night Brothers, Amari is a Black girl who lives in housing projects in Atlanta, Georgia, with her mother and her older brother Quinton, who has mysteriously disappeared. She learns about the existence of the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs, which governs the supernatural world, after her brother nominates her as a potential recruit. Amari is accepted into a summer camp tryout at the Bureau, where she decides to investigate her brother’s disappearance and prove herself as an agent.
At camp, Amari discovers that she is a magician, a rare and dangerous ability, and that her brother’s disappearance is linked to his job as a Bureau Agent. Quinton captured the Night Brothers, Vladimir and Moreau, feared magicians who waged war against the supernatural world seven centuries earlier, but he was taken prisoner by Moreau’s apprentice. Amari investigates her brother’s kidnapping alongside her partner at the Bureau, Dylan Van Helsing. She ultimately finds out that Dylan has been seduced by the appeal of foul magick and was actually Moreau’s apprentice. Amari defeats him and reveals his secret identity to the Bureau, and Dylan is sent to the Sightless Depths, a hidden supernatural prison.
At the end of the book, Amari’s exploits appear to change the public’s opinion about magicians, and the young girl is able to bring her brother home, although Quinton remains under a sleeping curse. Amari and the Great Game picks up at the end of the following year, as Amari is about to start her second summer camp at the Bureau. She has been promoted to Junior Agent, alongside her best friend Elsie and other classmates introduced in the first book, such as Lara Van Helsing, Julia Farsight, and Bear. Amari is now more confident in her magical abilities and has found her place at the Bureau, but new dangers and prejudices are about to challenge her position.
Cultural Context: Contemporary Middle Grade Fantasy
B. B. Alston’s Supernatural Investigations series is part of a trend of contemporary middle grade fantasy that incorporates elements of traditional folklore and mythology into a fast-paced, modern narrative. Alston states that “Fantasy books have the ability to spark your sense of wonder, and there’s no greater feeling than that moment where you experience a world or a character that stretches the limits of your imagination further than you thought possible” (Hall, Des. “Meet B. B. Alston, Author of Amari and the Night Brothers.” Dead Darlings, 8 Apr. 2021). The author cites Men in Black as a catalyst for the original idea behind Amari’s supernatural world, as well as literary influences like Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Robert C. O’Brien’s Mrs. Frisby and The Rats of NIMH, and C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
One of the key thematic elements in Alston’s series is that it features a young Black protagonist, whose perspective allows the story to explore concepts like social justice, inclusion, and representation within a magical framework. Alston explains:
Amari is no stranger to being on the receiving end of negative stereotypes. And so I think when she encounters something similar in the supernatural world, it’s less jarring for her than it would be for someone who hadn’t had her life experiences. But Amari is still a human being, and there are times when it really does get to her. She gets frustrated and she lashes out. I think it’s in those moments that her individual character comes out. Having hope is a choice and it’s one that she continues to make (Brechner, Kenny. “An Interview With B. B. Alston.” Publishers Weekly, 11 Feb. 2021).
This emphasis on diverse representation can be found in other works of contemporary middle grade fiction, and fantasy in particular, that tackle similar themes. Rick Riordan’s popular series Percy Jackson and the Olympians reimagines classical Greek and Roman mythology through a modern perspective, and incidentally also features a camp for supernaturally gifted teenagers. More recently, books published under the Rick Riordan Presents imprint feature young, diverse protagonists who delve into myths and legends from non-Western cultures, such as Roshani Chokshi’s Aru Shah and the End of Time, J. C. Cervantes’s The Storm Runner, or Yoon Ha Lee’s Dragon Pearl. Through Amari’s story, Alston depicts experiences that are traditionally under-represented in the genre of middle grade fantasy, and therefore offers a complex, relevant, and emotionally driven narrative.
