How You Grow Wings

Cheta’s sharp tongue rattles their mother’s cramped kitchen like a dropped pan, while timid Zam tiptoes past the bruising words—and fate cracks wider when an invitation lifts Zam into their aunt’s marble-floored paradise, leaving Cheta to fend for herself on streets that sharpen every choice into a razor. Awards glitter across this novel’s cover—Kirkus Prize finalist, SLJ Best Book of the Year—yet its true voltage surges in the sisters’ tangled love, a living lesson in Gender Equality and Economic Justice that asks how far a girl must fly to outpace family scars. As Cheta slips toward desperate deals and Zam watches privilege reshape her shadow, their inevitable reunion feels like a stormfront colliding with still water: one sister must decide whether forgiveness can stitch wings onto broken bones. Each scene snaps with tension—classroom showdowns, sleepless mansion nights, grim back-alley bargains—while author Anike Adeyemi threads hope through ruin like gold wire in kente cloth, reminding readers that destiny is a door hinge, not a lock. One fierce question hovers: will Zam’s outstretched hand lift Cheta or shatter them both? Tap the blue ➕ to Save to List for later inspiration, or hit the bold arrow to Learn More and connect your classroom, youth group, or congregation to the hard-won flight pulsing through How You Grow Wings.