Materials from Africa
The inhabitants of South Africa divide their activities by day and night, as the animals in Kruger National Park go about their business while the people of Johannesburg sleep and then lie down in the shade as the people wake up.
For millennia, Somalia has been crossed and recrossed by camel caravans of merchants bringing stories with them. Elizabeth Laird heard most of these oral retellings in Jigjiga, the capital of Ethiopia’s Somali region, in gardens, bars, small huts and beautiful old Harari houses. Some of them are written down here for the very first time.
An Ethiopian boy finds his life endangered when he discovers that a disguised blacksmith, not a leopard, is responsible for a great many missing cattle in the area.
Anna Hibiscus goes to the beach with her family and has trouble finding someone to splash in the water with her.
Luc is an orphan, living in debt slavery in Gabon, until he meets a Professor who claims to be studying chimpanzees, and they head off into the jungle–but when the Professor disappears, Luc has to fend for himself and join forces with the chimps to save their forest.
The stunning sights and sounds of a Nigerian wedding are vividly brought to life in Ifeoma Onyefulu’s new picture book. The different traditions and customs of this African wedding are explored and explained through the eyes of one young spectator. We see the preparations made by the whole community in anticipation of the traditional African ceremony and second religious ceremony.
“Sarah Margru Kinson, as she came to be known, was only nine years old when she was taken from her home in Africa and brought to Cuba, where she and fifty-two other captives, including three other children, were sold and taken aboard the Amistad. The Africans revolted and took over the ship, but were later captured and put on trial, a trial that went all way to the Supreme Court and was argued in the Africans’ favor by John Quincy Adams, allowing them to return home to Africa. Here is that extraordinary story as told by one of those children. A fictionalized account.”–Jacket flap.
Based on a true story about a young Kenyan boy whose mother left him but had named him Muthini which meant suffering because he was born with no fingers on his left hand and only two on his right. Many times he was made fun of or avoided which hurt him deeply. He lives with his very elderly grandmother, his Nyanya, along with many cousins whose parents had either died or left them. They are extremely poor and there is never enough money or food, but plenty of love. A difficult choice must be made and Muthini is the youngest child and needs to have a better chance in life, so his Nyanya takes him to an orphanage where he is blessed and his name is changed to Baraka which means blessing for he was a blessing just as his grandmother always knew.
When Assa finds her beautiful sister Mee-An the perfect mate, the two sisters go off to live with him, only to discover that he is not at all what he seems to be.
Despite his father’s wishes, a Moroccan carpet seller’s son doesn’t want to learn foreign languages, but when trying to make a rooster crow in a crowded, tourist-filled market, he inadvertently learns how roosters crow in many countries.