In the past several years, Zetta Elliott has emerged as a major author of speculative fiction featuring African-American protagonists. Her two previous books for young readers, the young adult novel A Wish After Midnight (2010) and the middle grade novel Ship of Souls (2012) explored historical topics—racial tensions during the Civil War that culminated in the 1863 Draft Riot and the African burial ground respectively—through time travel. Although The Deep is a companion to Ship of Souls, Elliott’s focus is not on the past but on the present and future.
The Deep is a superhero story set in the present and near future when hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to extract natural gas touches off a series of earthquakes that unleash evil energy. In the summer between her eighth and ninth grade years, Nyla (who along with romantic interest Hakeem sought to protect their younger friend D from being kidnapped in Ship of Souls) discovers that her long-lost mother is a high-ranking operative for The League, an organization that battles the evil forces threatening to take over the world. Osiris, an apparently homeless drifter who follows Nyla around Brooklyn, has been tasked with bringing her to the Deep, and he does so by kidnapping D on the subway. When Nyla predictably follows D in order to rescue him, she meets the members of The League, a bickering, somewhat dysfunctional multiracial and multitalented band of superheroes that includes Lada, Nyla’s mother. Lada does not want Nyla to join The League right away, but Nyla longs to make up for time lost, and she feels compelled to play her part in stopping the onslaught of evil energy. But becoming part of The League means leaving behind a concerned father and stepmother, a kind and handsome boyfriend, a younger friend who still needs protection, and a bright future as one of the few African-Americans at a high school for academically gifted students.
Elliott creates a strong female character with many talents and many difficult choices. Her contradictory feelings toward the mother who abandoned her ring true and leave readers with much to ponder, especially if those readers are missing important people in their lives as well. Nyla’s toughness masks a vulnerability that the author makes clear early on; in the preface that takes place eight months earlier at an Air Force base in Germany, Nyla is sexually assaulted by an older boy at her school whom she believed she could control. This assault is what motivates Nyla’s father and stepmother to bring her back to the States, and to dangers they never could have imagined.
In an essay on courage for the blog Crazy Quilts, Elliott discusses her decision to self-publish The Deep rather than waiting for her traditional publisher that had scheduled the novel for 2015. She writes: “I felt sure that there was a teenage girl somewhere in the world who needed this book yesterday. I never found anything like The Deep when I was scouring the shelves of my public library as a teenager, but it’s a story that might have changed my world—or at least my perception of myself. Black girls don’t often get to see themselves having magical powers and leading others on fabulous adventures.”
The Deep does lead readers on “fabulous adventures,” and Elliott deserves applause and support for making this extraordinary story available now to fans of Ship of Souls and other readers at the middle and high school level looking for tales of ordinary kids who find themselves superheroes.
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