When It’s Your Turn For Midnight – at a glance
The School Reading Lists’ five word review: Family, secrets, war, freedom, Zimbabwe.
YA book title: When It’s Your Turn For Midnight.
YA author: Blessing Musariri.
Genre: Family drama.
Published by: Zephyr Books.
ISBN: 9781035902538.
Recommended for children aged: 14+ year-olds.
First published: Paperback November 2024.
This children’s book is ideal for: Confident readers in KS4.
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Our review:
Fifteen-year-old Chiante’s world is shattered when her Mama drops the bombshell that her steadfast and dependable Baba is not actually her biological father. Bloodlines are of extreme importance in Zimbabwe and Chiante feels lost when her assumed heritage is revealed to be a lie.
When it’s your own mother’s words that rip your life down the middle … you think – bones can mend. Words kill.
In an attempt to piece together her true history, Chiante hitchhikes from Harare to her grandmother’s in the countryside. Her grandmother’s village is not the quiet community that Chiante was expecting however, but rather a vibrant sisterhood of elders and former combatants, with deep bonds forged by the Zimbabwean War. There’s singing, dancing, lots of drinking and a successful fashion-upcycling business to get involved in. Not to mention an overload of TikTok videos.
As she begins to find her place in this close-knit, empowering sisterhood, Chiante is forced to face some dark truths. Secrets and pain have festered for generations and now risk ruining the happiness and hope that Chiante is trying so hard to hold onto. Ultimately there is a choice to make – is family your blood or your heart?
When It’s Your Turn For Midnight is a powerful tale of hope over adversity. Chiante is a strong, resourceful protagonist who faces her family’s demons with courage and resourcefulness. Grandmother Ambuya and her friends are a welcome inclusion, as vibrant older women who still have much to contribute and enjoy in life. It’s refreshing to have a YA novel where the focus is on cross-generational ties rather than romance or peer pressure.
Blessing Musariri’s first YA novel All That It Ever Meant was named the Observer’s ‘Best YA Book of 2023’ and won the Children’s Africana Book Award in 2024. When It’s Your Turn For Midnight is inspired by interviews with real female ex-combatants of the Zimbabwean War of Liberation. This is a slice of all-too-recent history that young (and not so young) readers are unlikely to be familiar with, given the Western, euro-centric focus of much of our news media.
“War is hell. Death is not the end of breath or a final heartbeat. Death is … a ghost that haunts the living. Those it claimed are resting.”
When It’s Your Turn For Midnight gives a unique and highly valuable insight into both the conflict and its enduring aftermath. Readers are shown that the pain of war lasts long after the guns are silenced and the TV crews have moved on to the next tragedy. But even more enduring is hope and the determination to live a full life, acknowledging but not being ruled by the past.
The book contains considerable descriptions of past violence and ongoing psychological trauma. Care should therefore be taken in recommending it to younger readers.
When It’s Your Turn For Midnight is a hard-hitting but ultimately uplifting novel for older teenagers. It is likely to appeal particularly to fans of Malorie Blackman and Sarah Crossan.
Many thanks to Zephyr Books for the review copy.
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If you like When It’s Your Turn For Midnight by Blessing Musariri you might also like: our reviews of I Loved You In Another Life by David Arnold, Sisters of the Moon by Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick, We Have Everything We Need To Start Again by Koleka Putuma, Wild East by Ashley Hickson-Lovence and Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley.
Browse our Year 10 book list.
