Parents' Guide to

Black Girl Unlimited: The Remarkable Story of a Teenage Wizard

By Barbara Saunders, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 16+

Girl survives through smarts and magic in intense novel.

Book Echo Brown Emotions 2020
Black Girl Unlimited: The Remarkable Story of a Teenage Wizard Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this book.

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What's the Story?

In the opening scene of BLACK GIRL UNLIMITED, Echo is a 6-year-old in her home, which is on fire. Her mother is passed out in the bathroom, overdosed on crack cocaine. Echo and her brothers are rescued that day, and the rest of the book traces the developments in Echo's and her family's life as she finds a niche for herself in gifted and talented programs at school and begins a new life as a Dartmouth freshman. It's revealed that Echo, her mother, and other allies and friends along the way are wizards: They can stop time, see people's negative moods as black veils, and communicate with the dead and the in-between world. The supernatural powers help them navigate the pitfalls of poverty, cocaine addiction, racism, colorism, sexual abuse, and generational trauma.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
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Kids say (3 ):

Intense, flawed, and beautiful, this book is recommended for mature readers only. Echo Brown is best known for her highly acclaimed one-woman show (Black Virgins Are Not for White Hipsters), and Black Girl Unlimited is her debut novel. That background contributes to the strengths and shortcomings in the novel. The contents of the book are very, very intense in a way that might feel safer in a theater performance, told by a performer whose physical presence serves as reassurance she survived. There are rapes, molestation, overdoses, a devastating car accident, stabbings. There are scenes of crack cocaine binges, with adults crawling on the floor to get the last of the powder. All of that is hard to read when you don't know where the story is going to go. In addition, the author uses a technique of interspersing one scene with another, jumping back and forth every few paragraphs. That is another solo performance approach that sometimes gets hard to follow on the page.

The magical realism element -- many of the women are wizards -- isn't quite convincing. It seems more like metaphor than world building. Ultimately, the book feels more like a personal essay than either a novel or a memoir: It is a chronological series of anecdotes that make a point but don't quite add up to a story with beginning, middle, and end. Yet the language is beautiful and poetic, with a strong writer's voice.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about what it means to be educated. Echo gets two educations in Black Girl Unlimited: One makes her a wizard and one gets her into Dartmouth. How does each of those educations support the other?

  • What are the qualities in Echo that help her escape the temptations that ensnare her mother, father, brothers, and other people in the neighborhood? What are her character strengths?

  • The author uses a style called "magical realism," mixing supernatural events with realistic ones. Did you enjoy this? How did the supernatural elements affect the way you understood the story of Echo and her family?

Book Details

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