Black Girl Magic, Literally: 5 Fantasy Books With Magical Black Girl Heroines
You've heard the term Black Girl Magic.
It's that thing Black women do when we make a way out of no way. When we walk into a room with confidence, figure out what needs to be figured out, and somehow get it done. When our skin hits the sunlight just right and starts glowing like somebody sprinkled a little sorcery in the melanin.
You know. Black Girl Magic.
But in these books?
The Black girls are literally magic.
And yes, these are YA fantasy books. But don't sleep.
I am a 47-year-old woman, and I have been completely locked into every one of these worlds.
Now, if I had a daughter instead of a son who spent his childhood slinging imaginary spiderwebs at me, I would absolutely be reading these books with her. Not just because they're good, but because there is so much here to talk about.
Mothers and daughters. Grief. Identity. Family. Ancestry. Racism. Belonging. Responsibility. Figuring out who you are. Learning what you've inherited from the people who came before you and deciding what you're going to do with it.
These are the kinds of books that can entertain you and give you an opening to have conversations that might otherwise be hard to start.
I didn't get my mother-daughter fantasy book club, so consider this my gift to those of you who can.
And if you don't have a teenage girl to read them with?
Read them anyway.
This Poison Heart & This Wicked Fate by Kalynn Bayron
Trust me.
Completed duology | Botanical magic | Family secrets
Briseis has always known there is something different about her relationship with plants.
They respond to her. She can make them grow. Even poisonous plants that could seriously harm someone else don't seem to hurt her.
Then a death in her biological family leaves Briseis with an inheritance: an old house, an apothecary, and a whole lot of family history nobody bothered to tell her about.
As Briseis and her adoptive mothers settle into the house, she slowly begins uncovering the truth about her biological family, her botanical magic, and just how powerful the women she comes from really are.
Unfortunately, inheriting the family gifts also means inheriting the family problems.
And enemies.
Because there are people who know exactly what Briseis can do, even while she's still figuring it out herself.
What follows takes her far beyond learning how to control her abilities. She has to protect the people she loves, uncover secrets that have been buried for generations, and figure out what her family's magic has to do with an ancient story much bigger than she ever imagined.
And can we talk about her moms?
One thing I loved about this series is that while Briseis is discovering this entire biological family and history she never knew existed, her adoptive mothers are still very much her parents. Her biological history doesn't erase the family that raised her.
There is so much here to talk about with a young reader: identity, adoption, family, belonging, and what it means to discover where you came from without losing who you already are.
Blood Like Magic by Liselle Sambury
Completed duology | Ancestral magic | Family legacy
Imagine growing up knowing that one day you're supposed to receive your family's magical gift.
The day finally comes.
And instead of somebody handing you your powers and saying, "Congratulations, baby," one of your family's most notorious ancestors gives you a seemingly impossible task.
That's essentially where Voya's story begins.
Voya comes from a family of witches whose magic has been passed down for generations. But before she can receive her gift, she has to complete a trial assigned by an ancestor.
And Voya doesn't believe she can do it.
The problem?
Failure doesn't just affect her.
If Voya fails, her entire family could lose their magic. And that magic isn't just some cool party trick. It is connected to their safety, their history, their livelihood, and the future of the people she loves.
So now this young girl is carrying the weight of generations on her shoulders while trying to figure out who she is and what kind of person she's willing to become.
No pressure.
This is another reason I love these books for both teenagers and grown women. Underneath all the magic is a very real question:
What do you do when the expectations your family has for you don't match the person you believe yourself to be?
That's a conversation.
Legendborn by Tracy Deonn
Ongoing series | Arthurian legend | Ancestral power
First, I need Tracy Deonn to understand something.
If I knew where she lived, I might have to knock on her door and politely ask:
"Excuse me, ma'am. When is book four coming out?"
But I don't know where she lives, and apparently we're expected to behave like reasonable adults and wait.
So. Here we are.
Bree Matthews enters an early college program while still grieving the death of her mother.
But when she witnesses something supernatural on campus, she discovers a secret society connected to the legend of King Arthur and his knights.
And Bree starts to believe these people may know something about the suspicious circumstances surrounding her mother's death.
So naturally, she gets closer.
And the closer she gets, the more she discovers.
There are demons.
There is magic.
There are secrets.
And Bree's own history is tangled up in all of it.
What I especially love about Legendborn is that Bree isn't simply stepping into someone else's magical world. As she learns about the power around her, she begins uncovering her own history, her family's history, and a kind of magic rooted in the Black women who came before her.
And that changes everything.
This series gives you grief, ancestry, racism, power, history, complicated friendships, complicated love, and a Black girl learning that the story she's been told isn't necessarily the whole story.
Also, did I mention I'm waiting for the next book?
Because I'm waiting for the next book.
Wings of Ebony by J. Elle
Completed duology | Hidden worlds | Black girl power
Rue's mother is tragically killed by gun violence.
And then her deadbeat dad pops up.
Sir.
Where have you been?
Apparently, the answer is: another world.
Rue's father takes her away from the home she knows and brings her to Ghizon, a hidden island inhabited by people with magical abilities.
Which is a lot to process when you were just living your regular life five minutes ago.
Rue soon learns that she isn't simply connected to this magical world.
She belongs to it.
Her family belongs to it.
And the power inside her is far greater than she realized.
But before Rue can even get comfortable with the idea of who she is and what she has inherited, she realizes that the people she comes from are in danger.
So before she can adjust her crown, she's going to have to save them.
What makes Rue especially interesting to me is that discovering this magical part of herself doesn't mean abandoning where she came from. She's navigating two worlds, two pieces of herself, and the responsibility that comes with having the power to help people in both.
Again: fantasy on top.
But underneath?
Identity. Community. Family. Inequality. Grief. Anger. Responsibility.
There's plenty to talk about after the chapter ends.
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
Completed trilogy | West African-inspired fantasy | Magic and resistance
The Book That Started My Black Girl Magic Journey
This is where it started for me.
Before Legendborn. Before Blood Like Magic. Before I knew Black girls running around magical worlds was apparently going to become one of my favorite things to read.
There was Children of Blood and Bone.
Tomi Adeyemi takes us to Orïsha, where magic once existed among the maji, people recognizable by their white hair and connection to different magical abilities.
Until the king decided magic needed to disappear.
Magic is suppressed. The maji are persecuted and oppressed. Families are destroyed, and an entire group of people is forced to live under a system designed to keep them powerless.
Then Zélie gets an opportunity to bring magic back.
What follows is a journey across Orïsha as she fights to restore what was stolen from her people and give them the ability to fight for themselves.
This book had everything I didn't even know I wanted when I first picked it up.
A Black girl at the center of an epic fantasy.
African-inspired mythology and world-building.
Magic.
Danger.
Resistance.
Family.
And a girl being asked to carry something much bigger than herself.
Once I read it, I wanted more.
And thankfully, I found it.
Why I Keep Coming Back to Black Girl Magic Fantasy Books
Fantasy lets us imagine impossible things.
People control plants. Ancestors hand down magical gifts. Secret societies fight demons. Hidden civilizations exist in entirely different worlds. Magic can disappear from a land and one girl can be responsible for bringing it back.
But that's not actually the most magical part of these books for me.
It's seeing Black girls at the center of all of it.
They're not standing beside somebody else's chosen one.
They are the chosen ones.
They're powerful and scared. Confident and confused. Sometimes they're right. Sometimes they make terrible decisions.
They're grieving mothers. Arguing with parents. Falling in love. Discovering family secrets. Learning about their ancestors. Trying to understand the world and deciding what kind of women they're going to become.
They get to be complicated.
And they get to be magical.
I didn't get the mother-daughter book club version of my life. I got a little boy shooting imaginary spiderwebs at me.
And I wouldn't trade him.
But if you have a Black girl in your life, maybe pick up one of these books and read it with her.
Talk about what she thinks.
Talk about the choices these girls make. Talk about their mothers and grandmothers. Talk about the expectations placed on them. Talk about where their power comes from.
And maybe use a little actual Black girl magic to make room for some conversations of your own.
And if you're 27, 37, 47, 57 or beyond and there isn't a teenager anywhere in sight?
Girl, read the book.
YA is a section in the bookstore.
It is not an age restriction.
