Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky, published by Kwame Mbalia in 2019, is the first novel in a middle-grade fantasy trilogy. Set in modern-day Chicago, Alabama, and the mythical lands of Alke, the novel is the hero’s journey of Tristan Strong, a seventh grader coming to terms with the death of his best friend. The novel is a winner of the 2020 Coretta Scott King honor book for contributions to Black children’s literature. This guide is based on the Disney/Hyperion print edition. Readers should note that the book includes fantasy violence, brief representations of death, and discussion of the Middle Passage and slavery in America.

Plot Summary

Tristan Strong travels from Chicago to the family farm in Alabama with his grandparents Alvin and Nana Strong. His trip is his parents’ latest effort to help him emerge from the depression he feels after Eddie, his best friend, dies in an accident during a school trip with Tristan and his classmates. Tristan has long been fascinated by the folktales Nana told him and he collected them with Eddie as a part of a school project. Soon after Tristan’s arrival at the Strong farm, Gum Baby, an impudent little thief from the land of Alke, attempts to steal a strange journal that glows and is the only memento of Eddie that Tristan has. During a tussle over the journal, Tristan punches a hole in the sky, thereby damaging the integrity of this fantasy world and releasing a haint—Uncle Cotton, a loathsome holdover of American slavery—in this mythical world.

Tristan and Gum Baby land in the Burning Sea, located between the lands of MidPass and mainland Alke, but they escape its fiery water and ships made of bones with the help of air-raft pilot Ayanna, who attempts to take Tristan, Gum Baby, and passengers, to safety in a place called the Thicket. Tristan is shocked when he realizes his fellow passengers are creatures straight out of Black folktales. On the way to the Thicket, animated chains called fetterlings capture Brer Fox, one of Ayanna’s allies. Tristan tries to save Brer Fox by punching, the only thing he knows how to do. His journal transforms into a paper giant shaped like Eddie when the fetterlings overcome Tristan, but these powers are not enough. Both Brer Fox and the journal disappear.

At the Thicket, Tristan learns that his actions have sparked a wave of kidnappings by the fetterlings, creatures created by the Maafa, a large monster who is under the control of Uncle Cotton (a fact Tristan keeps from the gods of MidPass). Tristan discovers he is an Anansesem, a storyteller gifted with Anansi the Spider’s power to bring stories to life, and the legendary John Henry gives him a magical set of boxing gloves and an adinkra, a charm, in the shape of a spider. Brer Rabbit is suspicious of Tristan and insults him as a bumbling coward. Tristan learns that the only way to repair the hole and save the land is to secure the help of Anansi. Anansi is greedy for stories, so gaining his help will require that the people of MidPass secure a Story Box, an object of power made to hold stories.

After at first refusing this charge, Tristan, Ayanna, a rabbit called Chestnutt, and Gum Baby go on a quest to find the Story Box. They travel to the Golden Crescent, home of Nyame, the powerful sky god, where they are forced to free Nyame from imprisonment by the Maafa. They go to Anansi’s palace, but it is wrecked, and Anansi is not there. They next hunt the Story Box in the mountain fortress of the Ridge, only to be pursued there as well by monsters of the Maafa. The Story Box is there, but it is empty. High John the Conqueror, another mythical figure, demands that Tristan give the Story Box to him after claiming the Thicket is destroyed. He takes Tristan on a spirit ride to prove his point but gives up his claim to the box once the Ridge hands it over.

Tristan and the others, now accompanied by warrior princess Thandiwe of the Ridge, go back to Nyame for help in fixing the box. Nyame’s powers and Tristan’s storytelling do bring the box to life, but the Maafa and its forces attack. Meanwhile, the hole has almost covered the entire world. Tristan strikes a deal with the Maafa. Tristan will tell the story of how John Henry and the others destroyed this creature of the sea when they first came to MidPass, and the Maafa will sink to the bottom of the sea, taking Uncle Cotton, who has taken up residence in it, with it. The Maafa agrees and sinks to the bottom of the ocean as Tristan tells its story.

After engaging in a contest of wills with Uncle Cotton, Tristan recovers the journal, says goodbye to Eddie, and rescues a prisoner on the ship. The prisoner turns out to be the actual Brer Rabbit, while Rabbit from the Thicket is Anansi, who has been impersonating Brer Rabbit to hide the fact that monsters first invaded the land after his hoarding of story attracted them. Nyame restores order by banishing Anansi to a smartphone that Tristan will carry around for 20 days in his own world. Using Anansi’s spider silk, Tristan and the spider close the hole, and Tristan begins collecting stories in Alabama.