Book Review: Mayowa And The Sea Of Words by Chibundu Onuzo

‘Mayowa And The Sea Of Words’ is the first book in the series by Chibundu Onuzo. It was published in 2024, and was the Waterstones’ Children’s Book of the Month in May 2025.

I absolutely adored this book. It follows ten-year-old Mayowa, a mixed-raced girl living in London with her parents, who are striving to ensure she doesn’t have to struggle with the prejudices and racist rhetoric that is rampant in the UK for as long as possible.

However, her circumstances change when her mother gets the opportunity of a lifetime to tour the United States with her jazz band, and Mayowa has to spend a sizeable chunk of her summer holidays at her Grandfather’s house in the countryside.

Her paternal grandfather, Edward is an eclectic man with a green beard and lives in a large, sprawling house that is in a state of moderate disrepair. He is a member of the House Of Lords, and a philanthropist. However, Grandpa Edward is a strange man, and likes to jump on books, a habit Mayowa’s parents don’t want her emulating.

However, even before she departs for her time in the countryside, Mayowa is already making attempts to jump on books. She leaps on a copy of The Secret Garden in her bedroom, and acknowledges that her mother, who is blind, has a rural countryside television show on, and tells Mayowa that she regrets not raising her outside of the hustle and bustle of the city at times. It piques her interest and she continues her covert attempts to glean information about book jumping.

She learns from her grandfather that she has inherited the family gift of logoslating, where someone can jump on a book and utilise the way these books made an audience feel and project them outwards into the world.

She begins to train in the art of logoslating with Grandpa Edward on a daily basis and playing with a boy her age that lives on the property called Hamza. He and his mother are refugees who crossed the Channel and laid down roots in the UK, and are living in Grandpa Edward’s summer house. Mayowa learns through her persistent questioning that Hamza misses his home, family and friends, but wouldn’t have been safe if he remained, through him Mayowa learns what it means to be a refugee.

Just as the UK is about to pass a law that makes it illegal to save refugees in their small boats if they capsize and begin to drown. Instead, the British people should just let them die, and Mayowa and Grandpa Edward won’t stand for it.

This book is magical and poignant. I loved how visceral the imagery in this book is, and how remorseful Grandpa Edward is about his family’s past, even if he cannot change the mistakes of logoslaters past.

I also enjoyed the way in which this book made asylum seeking an easy to understand topic without going into too much gritty and distressing details. Instead, Mayowa’s questions have been shut down with curt but polite requests not to ask again because Hamza or his mother don’t wish to talk about it. It makes the topic of people crossing over into the UK on small boats understandable, and the idea of allowing them to suffer and die inexcusable through basic human empathy. It was beautifully written.

I absolutely loved this book, and how grounded the magic was, as well as the way Onuzo was able to broach a hot political topic with such a clear stance, without any friction. It was explored in the simplest terms, while also being able to access and empathise with the people in that scenario.

I cannot wait to see what adventures Mayowa, Hamza and Grandpa Edward end up going on in the fallout of this first book!