Presents a day in the life of a child living in Johannesburg, discussing the social life, customs, religion, history, and language of South Africa.
A Child’s Day: In a South African City
Africa
Materials from Africa
Born For Adventure
When young Tom Ormsby cons his way onto the great explorer Henry Morton Stanley’s “Relief of Emin Pasha Expedition” in 1887, he’s looking for adventure. But he has no idea what lies ahead of him. From the exotic bazaars of Zanzibar to the mouth of the Congo River and beyond, Tom soon learns he’s signed on for more than the rescue of the mysterious Pasha. He’s on a journey through the ravishing beauty and brutality of a jungle world peopled by slavers, warring tribes, cannibals, and colonial masters – all jockeying for survival in 19th-century Africa. As Karr follows Tom’s remarkable three-year trek, she raised some provocative questions about slavery, the right of one country to impose its cultural imperatives on another, and the arrogance that can prevent a man from achieving his ultimate goal. Startling, scary, and surprising, this true story takes the reader deep into the heart of the African past.
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. Children have become soldiers of choice. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them.What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived.In A Long Way Gone, Beah, now twenty-five years old, tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he’d been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts.
Freedom Child of the Sea
A young man, swimming off the shore of a Caribbean island, is saved from drowning by a mysterious boy who appears from the depths. His body is scarred, yet his face is beautiful, and he leaps and swims as joyously as the dolphins. When the young man tells this to a passing stranger, he in turn is told a story of the days of slave trading. When one of his ancestors came to these islands aboard a slave ship, a pregnant woman was thrown off because it was thought she wouldn’t survive the journey. It is said that she and her son live in the ocean to this day, and he is called Freedom Child of the Sea. Only when there is harmony among all people will he and his mother be able to live on land as others do. Reassuring the young man that there is hope for all humanity, the stranger goes on his way.
Kwajo And The Brassman’s Secret
A tale of old Ashanti wisdom and gold. Kwajo lives in Ghana. Ghana is country in West Africa. The Ashantis live here. Many years ago, Ashanti was a powerful kingdom. Ashanti is also very influential in Ghana today. The Ashantis were and are famous as courageous warriors, able merchants and artists, above all as woodcarvers, weavers, goldsmiths, drummers and dancers.Formerlyr, the Ashantis owned a lot of gold. They paid with gold dust. The gold dust was weighted on scales. The weights consisted of small, exquisite figurines. Every figurine represented someting different. These figurines were called gold weights and they were cast in bronze.
Botswana
Provides comprehensive information on the geography, history, governmental structure, economy, cultural diversity, peoples, religion and culture of Botswana.
The Mzungu Boy
For Kariuki, life in a small village in Kenya is one great adventure. The best part of his day is the walk home from school, when he is free from both his bullying headmaster and his mother’s long list of chores. The landscape around his village is beautifully wild, and Kariuki knows it well. One day Kariuki meets Nigel, a boy from England who has come to visit his grandfather, the fearsome Bwana Ruin, who owns the farm where the villagers work. The villagers call Nigel the mzungu boy (westerner), and view him with suspicion and fear, but not Kariuki. One day the boys decide to hunt down the meanest warthog in the forest. The hunt takes them deeper into the jungle than Kariuki has ever gone, and all at once his beloved forest becomes a frightening place. Dangerous creatures live in the jungle, including the mau-mau, the men with guns who are plotting against Bwana Ruin and the white soldiers. And when Nigel suddenly disappears, will Kariuki be able to save his friend?In this novel, the author captures a time of innocence, wild beauty, and the growing violence that eventually changed the entire structure of colonial Africa.
Brothers in Hope: The Story of the Lost Boys of Sudan
A young boy unites with thousands of other orphaned boys to walk to safety in a refugee camp in another country, after war destroys their villages in southern Sudan. Based on true events.
Awards:
Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Books
Umm Al Madayan: An Islamic City through the Ages
Traces, in detailed drawings and text, the development through the ages of a fictional Islamic city in North Africa.
How to Catch a Fish
Thirteen linked verses and handsome, mood-drenched paintings show how we catch fish–from New England to the Arctic, to Japan and Namibia and beyond. This lovely picturebook–about fishing, geography, people and customs, and the bond between parent and child fishing together–will appeal to everyone who’s cast a line in the water.