**Post will not be published until one month before release: Feb 1, 2022
Publication date: March 1, 2022
Author Ibi Zoboi; Illustrator Noa Denmon

My Thoughts:
This novel has King TʻChaka (father of TʻChalla and Shuri) playing a minor role to one of his newest Dora Milaje warriors, Okoye. When Okoye is sent to America to accompany King TʻChaka on a humanitarian mission, her eyes are open to the inequity and suffering of teenagers that look like them. Okoye must use her gut instincts and innate sense of justice to try to unravel some of the deeply rooted inequities in race, power, and economic forces in Brownsville, a district of Brooklyn.

Although she is naive and young, with more spunk and fighter spirit than diplomcacy and persuasion skills, as all Marvel stories, evil is revealed and eventually good prevails. There is even a very small cameo by the Black Panther.

What makes this different from other Avenger adjacent stories is that this young warrior knows that she needs to empower the teens of Brownsville rather than saving them herself. The teens of Brownsville need to understand that they donʻt need another colonizer. They need to take back their own community, even if they are the ones that destroyed it in the first place.

From the Publisher:
Ibi Zoboi, a National Book Award Finalist and New York Times best-selling author, joins Marvel Universe storytelling with this heartfelt novel that takes Okoye to America for the very first time.

Before she became a multifaceted warrior and the confident leader of the Dora Milaje, Okoye was adjusting to her new life and attempting to find her place in Wakanda’s royal guard. Initially excited to receive an assignment for her very first mission and trip outside Wakanda, Okoye discovers that her status as a Dora Milaje means nothing to New Yorkers.

When she meets teenagers not much younger than herself struggling with the gentrification of their beloved Brooklyn neighborhood, her expectations for the world outside her own quickly fall apart. As she gets to know the young people of Brownsville, Okoye uncovers the truth about the plans of a manipulative real-estate mogul pulling all the strings―and how far-reaching those secret plans really are.

Caught between fulfilling her duty to her country and listening to her own heart urging her to stand up for Brownsville, Okoye must determine the type of Dora Milaje―and woman―she wants to be.

In this fish-out-of-water story, New York Times best-selling author and National Book Award finalist Ibi Zoboi combines the high-stakes adventure of the world of the Black Panther with the grounded and real-world challenges that bring her work to life.

Okoye to the People follows Dora Milaje Okoye before the events of the Black Panther film, while King T'Chaka is alive. On a trip to New York representing a Wakandan peace delegation, Okoye visits the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn and realizes, even with her limited familiarity with the primitive (compared to Wakanda) American culture and cities that something is very wrong.

As she dives further into the mystery of what ails Brownsville and the youth in the neighborhood, Okoye discovers more and more differences between New York and Wakanda- and that hardships that people face that are both unique and universal.

The start of this book was a little slow for me, and the writing in the 3rd person, present tense took me a little while to get used to. Once the plot picked up, I really enjoyed the story and the characters- it was fun to get to know Okoye better than we do in the films. I would recommend this to a lot of my 9th and 10th graders in the library, though I would probably recommend it more enthusiastically to those who are already very familiar with the Marvel Universe, since I thought there were some details that may be difficult to understand without that context.

I love this author’s voice and this treatment of a popular character. After Punching the Air, I would visit any work from Ibi Zoboi. Okoye to the People is a highly recommended read for fans, newbies, teachers, students, and younger and older readers. Much love!