Amari and the Night Brothers

Amari and the Night Brothers is a 2021 middle-grade fantasy novel by debut author B. B. Alston. The novel is the recipient of the 2021 Barnes and Noble Children’s and YA Book Award. It has also been recognized by the American Library Association as a Notable Children’s Book and Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers.

Twelve-year-old Amari Peters, a Black girl from the low-income housing projects, struggles to fit in as the only scholarship student at the prestigious Jefferson Academy, where her peers bully her because of her race and her social class. Amari discovers that a supernatural world resides alongside her own when she learns that her missing brother, Quinton, nominated her for a summer career tryout at the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs. Hoping to find clues about her brother’s disappearance, Amari accepts the nomination—but when she is identified as a magician, an illegal designation, she’s as much of an outcast in the supernatural world as she was in her ordinary one. Meanwhile, a powerful magician named Moreau lays siege to the supernatural world with human-monster hybrids in pursuit of a powerful dark object. Moreau may be the only key to finding Quinton, and Amari must stop Moreau’s destruction.