A retelling of the traditional tale about a bee that repays King Solomon’s kindness by helping him solve the Queen of Sheba’s riddle.
Picture Book
The House With No Door: African Riddle-Poems
A collection of original poems created from riddles of various African tribes.
Where Are You Going, Manyoni?
A child living near the Limpopo River in Zimbabwe encounters several wild animals on her way to school.
Five Nice Mice
Five nice mice are sitting in the garden one night when Baba hears faint music in the distance. What can this wonderful sound be? They decide to go and find out, and they discover a fabulous frog concert. But mice aren’t allowed in. So they return home and decide to form an orchestra of their own—no frogs allowed. They practice and practice, and finally put on a great show. When all the cheers die down, the mice are shocked to see an audience full of frogs! It turns out that you can’t keep good music to yourself after all.
Chinye: A West African Folk Tale
Poor Chinye! Back and forth through the dark forest she goes, fetching and carrying for her cruel stepmother and lazy stepsister. Terror lurks behind every tree, and ghostly figures cross her path–but strange powers are watching over her, and waiting somewhere in the moonlight is a hut piled high with magic gourds.
Snook Alone
Through the power of faith, a monk named Abba Jacob and his loyal rat terrier, Snook, are reunited after being separated by a ferocious storm.
Mcheshi Goes to the Game Park/Mcheshi Aenda Hifadhi Ya Wanyama
Mcheshi’s uncle, a game ranger, takes her and her brother Mungwana for a ride through a game park.
Kassim’s Shoes
Kassim succumbs to pressure to abandon his old shoes but has trouble discarding them.
Caring for Cheetahs
Author Rosanna Hansen travels to Namibia, Africa, to help cheetahs, one of the worlds endangered species. She helps save a cheetah cub from a life-threatening injury. She pets a thoroughly tame cheetah. She sets up a cheetah race. (Cheetahs love to run.) And she meets many cheetahs that are not so tame. Humans are taking over cheetah habitat, so the world’s fastest runners are running out of space and hanging on in low numbers. People are working to save them one by one through organizations like the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF), which runs the reserve the author visits. Young readers will revel in this up-close perspective on the magnificent cheetah.
Song Bird
An adaptation of a folktale from southern Africa, in which a magical bird helps a kind young girl get back her people’s stolen cattle from Makucha the monster.