Review by Karl Verhoven

Iyanu lives with her mother Olori in the forest, keeping their distance from the residents of a walled community bordering the forest. She has a curious nature, not least about her own background and personality. She was found by her mother as an infant, and seems somehow attuned to the forest, drawing on energies for visions, and is an unnaturally skilled archer. Her mother may know more about this and other matters than she lets on, but isn’t yet inclined to share that with Iyanu.

Roye Okupe packs a lot of information into his opening chapters, laying out the city’s power structure and conflicting priorities of those within it alongside their traditions and prophecies. This is in addition to information about Iyanu herself. Perhaps this all informs one of the connected series Okupe writes, but here it transmits as unnecessarily complex. A better course would have been to supply the necessary information in smaller doses, perhaps during flashbacks, as by the third chapter everything has changed, and that’s where Iyanu’s story really kicks off.

The sample art shows Godwin Akpan’s digital art to good effect. With a wide-eyed Iyanu, a lush forest and bright special effects his pages have the look of Disney 3D animation, although the complex digital patterns he provides are a step away and appealingly distinctive. His techniques tell the story well, and allow for effects like blurring backgrounds slightly to indicate distance and to bring what’s needed into focus.

While needless complexity features throughout, Okupe is conceptually strong, and an interesting threat that grows as Child of Wonder continues is the Corrupt, naturally predatory animals whose feral instincts are heading into overdrive. Also a danger to Iyanu is the new power in the city, aware of prophecies meaning she’s a possible threat, and prepared to kill her. Okupe is drawing from the legends of the Yoruba people in what’s now Nigeria, although at times dialogue like “violence is the only thing these savages will respond to” sounds suspiciously colonial.

There are plenty of good moments to Child of Wonder, with Iyanu a sympathetic character whose development in stages takes the right pace, while the regional villain is suitably grim and merciless. However, those aspects are wrapped in too many explanations complicating what would be better kept simple. Perhaps with the background established greater simplicity awaits in Volume Two.

Okupe separates the chapters with information pages, and in the back of the book supplies a timescale for the momentous events in the region.