Jamela and her family go to shoe store for her birthday gift. Jamela loves what the store clerk shows, but Jamela’s mama picks the practical & comfortable shoes for her. Although Jamela gets disappointed, she decorates her new shoes with beads and sparkly bits. When Jamela shows her special shoes, her mother doesn’t show support for Jamela. Lily, Jamela’s neighbor, liked Jamela’s decorated shoes and they make decorated shoes together. Lily names them Jamela’s shoes. In the market, their shoes sold like hotcakes. Jamela got her share from Lily. On Jamela’s birthday, Jamela gets very special gift from her mother as a consequence of the ‘Jamela’s shoes’.
Africa
Materials from Africa
Ryan and Jimmy: And the Well In Africa that Brought Them Together
In Agweo, Uganda, villagers were used to walking a long way every day in search of water. It costs a lot of money to build a well in Africa. The 6-year-old, Ryan Hreljac, kept doing chores around his parents’ house, even after he learned it could take him years to earn enough money to build one. Then a friend of the family wrote an article in the local newspaper about Ryan’s wish to build a well in Africa to supply people with clean water. After Ryan’s well was built, a young orphan named Akana longed for a chance to thank Ryan in person for this gift of life-clean water.
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.
Owen & Mzee: The True Story Of a Remarkable Friendship
True story of two great friends: a baby hippo named Owen and a 130-year-old giant tortoise named Mzee. In December 2004, a young hippo separated from his family by the devastating tsunami in Southeast Asia, adopted an ancient Aldabra tortoise as his ” mother”. And the old tortoise, for years a loner, accepted the baby hippo as his own. They are now inseparable.
Drumbeat In Our Feet
The beauty of African dances is explained by introducing the history and the energy of African dances. The poetic rhythms of African dance are the instrument of the poem flow.
Illustrative medium; watercolor and colored pencil.
Home Now
A child dealing with loss while trying to find her place in a new home. An author’s note provides context for the plight of the many children orphaned by the AIDS epidemic in Africa.
Jamela’s Dress
Jamela gets in trouble when she takes the expensive material intended for a new dress for Mama, parades it in the street, and allows it to become dirty and torn.
Our Secret, Siri Aang
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Namelok, a Masai girl, tries to persuade her traditionalist father to delay her initiation and marriage because they will restrict her freedom and keep her from the black rhino mother and baby she is protecting from poachers.
See the review at WOW Review, Volume 3, Issue 4
Oh, No, Toto!
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Little Toto loves to eat, and when he goes with his grandmother to the marketplace he eats everything in sight, leaving chaos in his wake. Includes a glossary of Cameroonian foods and a recipe for egussi soup.
The Shipwrecked Sailor: An Egyptian Tale With Hieroglyphs
A tale, based on a story found in ancient papyrus scrolls, about a shipwrecked sailor who finds fortune when he is befriended by a serpent that is the Prince of the magical island of Punt.
The Children Of Mauritania: Days In The Desert And By The River Shore
Compares the daily lives of a Moorish girl and a Halpoular boy from different regions of Mauritania, children of different ethnic backgrounds who are linked by their Muslim religion.