The Last Gate of the Emperor by Kwame Mbalia (author)

Our May 2021 Ages 9-10 Book of the Month

My May Book of the Month for ages 9 and over is Last Gate of the Emperor. Our protagonist Yared Heywat lives an isolated life in Addis Prime – a city filled with rundown tech, lots of rules, and not much to do. His only escape is the underground augmented reality game, The Hunt for Kaleb’s Obelisk. But one day when Yared logs in with his real name, it triggers an attack upon his city and causes his Uncle Moti’s disappearance. Suddenly, all the stories Moti told him as a young boy are coming to life, and somehow Yared is at the centre of all of them. Yared must search kingdoms in the sky and fight city-razing monsters to find his Uncle… and to find answers to his place in a forgotten, galaxy-spanning war.

That synopsis alone is enough to get anyone excited, and screams Ready Player One, meets Black Panther, meets Star Wars. Plus it’s co-written by an unbelievable pair of authors. Kwame Mbalia is a New York Times bestselling author, and His Royal Highness Prince Joel David Makonnen is a member of the Ethiopian royal family and the great-grandson of the last Emperor of Ethiopia. This adventure is loosely based on Makonnen’s real-life story, intertwined with Ethiopian myth and folklore. It’s action packed, cinematic, Afrofuturistic, combining sci-fi and fantasy with the beauty of Ethiopia in an epic journey to the stars.

Su – Book Club Editor, Ages 7–11+