Materials from Africa
The sun is not yet up when a small elephant named Raju embarks with his mother on a special outing. As they meet a slithering snake in the forest, snapping crocodiles in the river, even a tiger in the tall grass, Raju’s mother shoos the scary creatures away and keeps her little one safe. Holding tight to his mother’s tail, Raju follows her up a high mountain and what they find at the top takes his breath away.
Wangari Maathai received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her efforts to lead women in a nonviolent struggle to bring peace and democracy to Africa through its reforestation. Her organization planted over thirty million trees in thirty years. This beautiful picture book tells the story of an amazing woman and an inspiring idea.
Join the discussion of Wangari Maathai as well as other books centered around relocation on our My Take/Your Take page.
Featured in WOW Review Volume XI, Issue 4.
What’s the deadliest animal in Africa? It’s not the lion or the crocodile–it’s the hippopotamus! Hippos have razor-sharp tusks, weigh as much as fifty men and can run 25 miles per hour! Follow these hefty hulks as they glide underwater, play tug-of-war, swat balls of dung at one another and nuzzle their young in the mud.
Poor Delphine is all alone. She has no family and no friends, and as a servant in Queen Theodora’s palace, her life is full of work. Fortunately, Delphine loves to sing, and if her spirits are down, songs bring her comfort and cheer. When young Princess Beatrice comes to live at the palace, Delphine is excited at first, but the unkind princess only makes Delphine’s life more miserable.
In this unique nonfiction picture book, the main character is a bicycle that starts its life like so many bicycles in North America, being owned and ridden by a young boy. The boy, Leo, treasures his bicycle so much he gives it a name — Big Red. But eventually Leo outgrows Big Red, and this is where the bicycle’s story takes a turn from the everyday, because Leo decides to donate it to an organization that ships bicycles to Africa.
This book has been included in WOW’s Kids Taking Action Booklist. For our current list, visit our Boolist page under Resources in the green navigation bar.
“A Tanzanian albino boy finds himself the ultimate outsider, hunted because of the color of his skin”–
Join the discussion of Golden Boy as well as other books centered around relocation on our My Take/Your Take page.
After her tribal village is attacked by militants, Amira, a young Sudanese girl, must flee to safety at a refugee camp, where she finds hope and the chance to pursue an education in the form of a single red pencil and the friendship and encouragement of a wise elder.
Featured in WOW Review Volume IX, Issue 2.
In this astonishingly beautiful and imaginatively illustrated picture book, Mosquito tells Iguana a tall tale that sets off a chain reaction that ends in jungle disaster. Iguana is so upset at being told such nonsense that he plugs his ears. So, of course, when Python says good morning, Iguana doesn’t hear and ignores him altogether. Python suspects Iguana is plotting mischief against him, so he hides in a rabbit hole – which terrifies Rabbit. And so this amusing African legend goes, until finally the chain of mishaps reaches Mother Owl, who reacts by refusing to hoot and wake in the sun.
Born in Ghana, West Africa, with one deformed leg, he was dismissed by most people—but not by his mother, who taught him to reach for his dreams. As a boy, Emmanuel hopped to school more than two miles each way, learned to play soccer, left home at age thirteen to provide for his family, and, eventually, became a cyclist. He rode an astonishing four hundred miles across Ghana in 2001, spreading his powerful message: disability is not inability.
For Poni, life in her small village in southern Sudan is simple and complicated at the same time. But then the war comes and there is only one thing for Poni to do. Run. Run for her life. Driven by the sheer will to survive and the hope that she can somehow make it to the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, Poni sets out on a long, dusty trek across the east African countryside with thousands of refugees. In Kakuma she is almost overwhelmed by the misery that surrounds her. Poni realizes that she must leave the camp at any cost. Her destination is a compound in Nairobi. There, if she is lucky, she can continue her education and even one day convince authorities that she is worthy to go to the land of opportunity called America. Even more than the dramatic events of the story, it is Poni’s frank and single-minded personality that carries this novel. In a heartbreaking final twist, she finds her mother just as she is about to leave for the U.S., and must make the hardest decision of all.
Featured in WOW Review Volume X, Issue 4.