Emeka’s Gift

This is a concept book to teach and delight. As a young African boy travels to visit his grandmother, he passes through the village market, where he sees lots of things Granny would like — four brooms, five hats, six necklaces, seven musical instruments, and so on. Stunning photographs taken in Emeka’s southern Nigerian village illustrate this heartwarming story.

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.

The Three Little Dassies

In this adaptation of the traditional folktale, three little dassies (also called rock hyraxes) build their houses in the Namib Desert of Southern Africa, hoping for protection from the eagle that lives atop a nearby mountain.

Tales from the African Plains: 9

A collection of folktales from Kenya and other parts of Africa, including “The Crocodile, The Boy and The Kind Deed,” “Why The Moon Comes Out at Night,” and “Wacu and The Eagle.”

The Man Who Knew Too Much: A Moral Tale from the Baila of Zambia

A husband does not believe it when his wife tells him that their crying baby is comforted by a huge eagle who flies down with its sharp talons and alights on the baby.

African Beginnings

From the ancient kingdom of Kush, whose black pharaohs ruled Egypt for nearly a century, to the sixteenth-century empire of the Kongo, whose emperor was so powerful he was able to halt the trade in slaves for a number of years, the African continent rang with a series of glorious civilizations that have had a lasting impact on the world’s history, and on American culture. James Haskins and Floyd Cooper have won numerous awards for their books for young people, including several Coretta Scott King Honor awards.