There are times twelve-year-old Kwame regrets that his grandmother immigrated from Ghana decades ago. Like when he has to visit Ghana, where he stands out like a sore thumb with his general lack of Ghanian cultural awareness, his desire for American food, and his embarrassment at wearing the dashiki his grandmother made especially for him. But he loves his grandmother, who acts as his anchor to a world he does not quite know, so her death shakes him to the core.
It's been three weeks since her passing, and the family is traveling to Ghana to participate in a celebration of life for her. Kwame doesn't believe there is an afterlife, and he feels really lonely without her stories. On his last night before flying out to Ghana, Kwame spends the night at his best friend's house. Autumn is deaf and wears hearing aids, but the two of them usually communicate in ASL. That night, as Kwame stresses about the upcoming trip and wishes he didn't have to go, he has a strange dream of a being he recognizes as Mother Earth from Ghanan myths, and when he awakens, his hand glows a faint gold. At the same time, a strange monkey breaks into Autum's house and steals Kwame's dashiki before sprinting out again.
Chasing the monkey, which Kwame now recognizes as an aboatia, a mythical monkey from Akan, Kwame reaches the pier, closely followed by Autumn who grabbed a sword Kwame didn't know she had. When Woo the abotia (that's what Kwame named it) jumps into the water with the dashiki, Kwame does not hesitate and follows, with Autumn right behind. Which is when Kwame finds himself in the Asamando, the place where dead Ghanans travel to following their death, in the middle of an election campaign for a new Mother Earth to replace the one who died 12 years ago. There, he encounters his grandmother in a much younger form, and together they set up to unravel a divine plot by nature gods who plan to destroy humanity ...
A great immersive experience in a culture most readers are not familiar with, Kwame Crashes the Underworld is fast-paced and action-packed, and explores such issues as cultural alienation, differently-abilities, intergenerational relationships, identify, and love.
