What I Heard in Their Words Rereading
It is my third time reading Tomi Adeyemi’s debut Children of Blood and Bone. I read it when it came out in 2018 and again right before the release of Children of Virtue and Vengeance. Children of Anguish and Anarchy, the last in the trilogy, publishes this summer on June 25, 2024, and I’m buddy reading books one and two to prepare.
First Time Annotating: My Approach
Despite how many times I’ve read the book, this is my first time annotating it. I’m paying attention to how lyrically written the novel is and overall just reading very mindfully for craft, especially foreshadowing. I want to know what makes this plot-heavy book click on the artistic level. There’s layers to it that are so worth peeling back.
Poetry on the Page
I’m struck by how Tomi Adeyemi uses the pages of this novel like a poet. She confidently wields line breaks to frame punchy sentences with eye-catching empty space. I particularly enjoy when her line breaks and use of repetition draw my eye down the page quickly. There’s momentum built in these moments, and it’s a cool way to add emphasis and speed to certain pages in the novel.
Let’s Talk About Rhymes
My favorite thing to annotate so far is Tomi Adeyemi’s rhymes within paragraphs. Reading with an eye for rhymes is a fun pastime and something I do in many lyrical novels. To me, it’s akin to beach combing. The practice keeps me in an appreciative mindset and in tune with what is before me. When I pick up that perfect piece of sea glass on the beach or catch a rhyme on the page, I feel a zippy little thrill over the discovery.
What The Rhymes Mean
So often there’s something to glean from observing a writing technique. For example, there’s a type of moment when rhymes in Children of Blood and Bone appear. They’re not randomly inserted. They appear most often when Zélie and Amari are hyper-focused or meditatively lost in thought. My sense is that Tomi Adeyemi is creating a distinction between her character’s inner voice and outer voice. When their private thoughts become more like lyrics, incantations, or chants, the rhythm and rhyme has a therapeutic effect. Musicality lifts the emotion they’re dealing with off the page so that we (and they) can face it. Simultaneously, the musicality packages the hard thought with a little beauty to soften the blow.
Reading like this isn’t as distracting as it sounds. Once you start noticing rhymes, it’s kind of hard to stop. It works like the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon.1
Bigger Picture Lyricism
So many notable novels use rhyming. In Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Claudia MacTeer’s narrative voice is punctuated with rhyming couplets that evoke the lyrics of blues songs. The Bluest Eye is a blues novel, and it’s so powerful to notice how its lyrical sentences tie in with the music themes in the book.
Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied Sing tops my list of novels with rhymes. I think I highlighted 75-80 couplet-like rhymes and internal rhymes in the book! Let Us Descend, her latest release, is notable for its rhymes and lyrical language too. In the connected worlds of these two novels, being able to hear or sing a certain song is an important step for accessing the afterlife or spiritual plane. The fact that there’s so much music inside the very sentences Jesmyn Ward write leads me to picture her book as a type of instrument. When we read it, we’re generating music and sound, and because of that sound, we are able to access another realm, the fictional realm. To me, it is a way to say (without saying) that reading is a spiritual practice and the place our minds go to is a spiritual space.
There’s a hypnotic flow to the rhymes in Children of Blood and Bone, which is a perfect vibe for a fantasy novel with magic. Spells and incantations are often written hypnotically and musically. Adeyemi’s rhymes are well done, not overdone. The rhymes feel like (or maybe just are) a naturally occurring subconscious expression of a character’s mind.
Final Thoughts on Rhymes
Rhyming is also a memory device used to pass down stories in oral traditions. I think the lyricalness of Children of Blood and Bone is one of the elements that has made the series so memorable and distinct in this cultural moment. Tomi Adeyemi is passing down a story that’s irrevocably and analogously connected to the abolition movement. It’s full of emotional wisdom for future generations, and it’s packaged in beautiful writing. I love thinking of her contemporary work of fiction as something that will be passed down, as something epic that will definitely be around in the future.
How to Annotate All the Rhyming in Children of Blood and Bone
This is what I’ve found so far. I’m on page 122 of my reread. I recommend picking a tab color and matching highlighter just for rhyming and lyrical moments. You will probably need around 60 tabs!
Use my guide below to start highlighting your book. Most instances of rhyming are couplet-like or occur in sentences that closely follow each other. My favorite ones are the internal rhymes within a single sentence.
Prologue
…her smile made Baba come alive.
…an untamed crown that breathed and thrived
page 1
Chapter One: Zélie
…we’ll never become the maji we were meant to be.
…That’s all they’ll ever see.
page 10
Chapter Two: Zélie
the place of the gold amulet she always wore around her neck
page 29 (near internal rhyme)
The night magic died.
…Baba shudders and I run to his side
page 29
Chapter Three: Amari
a servant I don’t recognize: a girl with chestnut skin and large, round eyes.
page 34
ordered Inan and me to spar. The home of so many of my scars.
page 38
planning an attack? Will we have any chance of fighting back?
page 40
tears for so many years
page 42 (internal rhyme)
acid and tea. The first sob breaks free.
page 44
…dear friend’s soul, unbelievably beautiful, eternally bold.
page 44 (triple, internal near rhymes)
Chapter Four: Zélie
…protest defies the title of slum, an ember of beauty where the monarchy sees none.
page 52 (near internal rhyme)
Chapter Eight: Inan
…was a powerful man. I just never realized how deep that power ran.
page 83
Chapter Nine: Zélie
…innocence only luxury can breed, running her fingers over the woven reeds.
page 87 (internal rhyme)
…the few Seers who lived in Ibadan were revered.
page 89, (near internal rhyme)
“…hold the answers you seek.” The more Mama Agba speaks, the more I lose feeling in my hands and feet.
page 93, (triple near rhyme)
…scream till my throat rips raw…my call…I crawl…
page 95 (triple near rhyme)
…trapped inside….if they’re even alive…
page 95
Chapter Ten: Zélie
I stare at the jagged rocks
…Baba should have sold me to the stocks.
page 99
….silence only intensifies
…tears soften my eyes.
page 99
doesn’t know his place without keeping others safe
page 100 (near rhyme)
Chapter Eleven: Inan
Count. To. Ten
…this horror shall end. The blood of the innocent.
page 102
“Count to ten,” I whisper again.
page 104
the fleeting scent of the sea
…has to be
…hiding among the trees.
page 105
her blood
…in the mud
page 108
Chapter Twelve: Zélie
let him and Mama Agba be okay
…not knowing what else to say…
page 110
that isn’t here
…the prince won’t appear.
page 114
Chapter Thirteen: Zélie
the bottom of the sea. The memories
…Another piece of me taken by the monarchy.
page 122
The end for now. I will keep this updated!
- Also known as the frequency illusion or recency illusion. ↩︎
Annotate With Sara 