#paperback #folktale #african #kids #children #childrensbook #livingbook #fable #tales #westafrica


Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Oregon

A West African Folk Tale

Chinye lives with her cruel stepmother and lazy stepsister, but her life changes for the better when a mysterious old woman in the forest directs her to a magic gourd.

Chinye

6d7868a5-941a-4125-9f3f-e5cad0f8614e-1

Guy A. Zona

Massachusetts

And Other Proverbs of Africa

Proverbs teach without preaching, serving as wry reminders of social norms and expectations. Assembled through library research and extensive correspondence, this entertaining collection of African folk sayings encompasses the oral traditions of a widely diverse continent.

The House of the Heart Is Never Full

acc4de5f-bbb2-4a3c-9e04-5a96786c31bb-0

Houghton Mifflin Company Staff

In excellent condition overall, but back cover has been repaired. 

Monkey's Trick

c0498dd0-765e-48f9-8243-719ac458604b-1

Kathryn Stockett

Pierre Girard

French language book. Some wear on edges, creases and signs of use.

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Texas

Chez les Blancs de Jackson, Mississippi, ce sont les Noires qui font le ménage, la cuisine, et qui s'occupent des enfants. On est en 1962, les lois raciales font autorité. En quarante ans de service, Aibileen a appris à tenir sa langue. L'insolente Minny, sa meilleure amie, vient tout juste de se faire renvoyer. Si les choses s'enveniment, elle devra chercher du travail dans une autre ville. Peut-être même s'exiler dans un autre Etat, comme Constantine, qu'on n'a plus revue ici depuis que, pour des raisons inavouables, les Phelan l'ont congédiée. Mais Skeeter, la fille des Phelan, n'est pas comme les autres. De retour à Jackson au terme de ses études, elle s'acharne à découvrir pourquoi Constantine, qui l'a élevée avec amour pendant vingt-deux ans, est partie sans même lui laisser un mot. Une jeune bourgeoise blanche et deux bonnes noires. Personne ne croirait à leur amitié; moins encore la toléreraient. Pourtant, poussées par une source envie de changer les choses, malgré la peur, elles vont unir leurs destins, et en grand secret écrire une histoire bouleversante.

La Couleur des Sentiments

62974ce7-2729-4520-8110-0eb02fefbd7c-1

Daphne Sheldrick

Illinois

An African Love Story

"Astonishing...You may be tempted after the last page to sell all your possessions and join [Sheldrick's] cause."—The Boston Globe The first person to successfully raise newborn elephants, Dame Daphne Sheldrick has saved countless African animals from certain death. In this indelible and deeply heartfelt memoir, Daphne tells of her remarkable career as a conservationist and introduces us to a whole host of orphans—including Bushy, a liquid-eyed antelope, and the majestic elephant Eleanor. Yet she also shares the incredible human story of her relationship with David Sheldrick, the famous Tsavo National Park warden whose death inspired the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and the orphans' nursery, where Daphne works to this day. From her tireless campaign to preserve Kenya's wildlife to the astonishing creatures she befriended along the way, Love, Life, and Elephants is alive with compassion and humor, providing rare insight into the life of one of the world's most fascinating women.

Love, Life, and Elephants

4e1d8daf-ae64-4196-8d29-713e12702d0c-1

Katherine Applegate

New York

A man I helped to settle here taught me a saying from Africa. I'll bet you would like it: A cow is God with a wet nose. Kek comes from Africa where he lived with his mother, father, and brother. But only he and his mother have survived. Now she's missing, and Kek has been sent to a new home. In America, he sees snow for the first time, and feels its sting. He wonders if the people in this new place will be like the winter—cold and unkind. But slowly he makes friends: a girl in foster care, an old woman with a rundown farm, and a sweet, sad cow that reminds Kek of home. As he waits for word of his mother's fate, Kek weathers the tough Minnesota winter by finding warmth in his new friendships, strength in his memories, and belief in his new country.

Home of the Brave

0cd3ae44-d9fb-46f1-8689-bfcf9f9c9e0e-1

Anna sings for the president, gets in a terrible tangle with her hair and visits the other side of the city.

Hooray for Anna Hibiscus!

761b9961-8a83-475e-b948-744a914a20ae-1

Alexandra Fuller

Smoke free home, pet free home. There are no writings markings or highlights in this book. Dust jacket is in great condition. Tiny bit of creasing at the top. Yellow dots on the top outer edge pages of the book. Please see photos.

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

An African Childhood

When the ship veered into the Cape of Good Hope, Mum caught the spicy, heady scent of Africa on the changing wind. She smelled the people: raw onions and salt, the smell of people who are not afraid to eat meat, and who smoke fish over open fires on the beach and who pound maize into meal and who work out-of-doors. She held me up to face the earthy air, so that the fingers of warmth pushed back my black curls of hair, and her pale green eyes went clear-glassy. “Smell that,” she whispered, “that’s home.” Vanessa was running up and down the deck, unaccountably wild for a child usually so placid. Intoxicated already. I took in a faceful of African air and fell instantly into a fever. In Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, Alexandra Fuller remembers her African childhood with visceral authenticity. Though it is a diary of an unruly life in an often inhospitable place, it is suffused with Fuller’s endearing ability to find laughter, even when there is little to celebrate. Fuller’s debut is unsentimental and unflinching but always captivating. In wry and sometimes hilarious prose, she stares down disaster and looks back with rage and love at the life of an extraordinary family in an extraordinary time. From 1972 to 1990, Alexandra Fuller–known to friends and family as Bobo–grew up on several farms in southern and central Africa. Her father joined up on the side of the white government in the Rhodesian civil war, and was often away fighting against the powerful black guerilla factions. Her mother, in turn, flung herself at their African life and its rugged farm work with the same passion and maniacal energy she brought to everything else. Though she loved her children, she was no hand-holder and had little tolerance for neediness. She nurtured her daughters in other ways: She taught them, by example, to be resilient and self-sufficient, to have strong wills and strong opinions, and to embrace life wholeheartedly, despite and because of difficult circumstances. And she instilled in Bobo, particularly, a love of reading and of storytelling that proved to be her salvation. A worthy heir to Isak Dinesen and Beryl Markham, Alexandra Fuller writes poignantly about a girl becoming a woman and a writer against a backdrop of unrest, not just in her country but in her home. But Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight is more than a survivor’s story. It is the story of one woman’s unbreakable bond with a continent and the people who inhabit it, a portrait lovingly realized and deeply felt.

Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

d159ed34-e896-444f-bd2a-52e74c2a023b-1

Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen

When a young Tanzanian girl gets a new baby brother, she finds a rock, which she names Eva, and makes it her baby doll.

Elizabeti's Doll

c8857e08-7506-4acb-88eb-992f3ff00480-0

#African #lullabies #nurseryrhymes #children #bedtime #bedtime-stories #stories #nursery-rhymes #CD #music
 Storybook with accompanying CD with 29 songs

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Maryland

Representing 11 languages originating from Central and West Africa and brought to life with lavish illustrations, this collection's rhymes and lullabies soothe babies to sleep as the songs travel from one country and one language to another. Lyrics are reproduced in the original language and translated into English, followed by notes on the origin and cultural context of each song. The accompanying CD features 29 songs from 10 countries--including Rwanda, the Ivory Coast, and Senegal--each one unique in language and sound, recorded with indigenous instruments and exquisitely performed by women, men, and children. This delightful, enchanting production captures the staccato rhythm of the children's rhymes and the poetry of the language as well as a sense of the heritage and tradition of each culture.

Songs From the Baobab

6a5459f3-0efa-4947-9f8d-2d567679bd94-1

Herman J. Viola

Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton

Growing up Maasai on the African Savanna

Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton gives American kids a firsthand look at growing up in Kenya as a member of a tribe of nomads whose livelihood centers on the raising and grazing of cattle. Readers share Lekuton's first encounter with a lion, the epitome of bravery in the warrior tradition. They follow his mischievous antics as a young Maasai cattle herder, coming-of-age initiation, boarding school escapades, soccer success, and journey to America for college. Lekuton's riveting text combines exotic details of nomadic life with the universal experience and emotions of a growing boy.

Facing the Lion

56f121ce-4ae6-4b5a-938f-0e416fedf991-1

Monica Edinger

A Child of the Amistad

"A remarkable story of resilience, faith, and hope." -- School Library Journal (starred review)

Inspired by a true account, here is the compelling story of a child who arrives in America on the slave ship Amistad--and eventually makes her way home to Africa. Narrated in a remarkable first-person voice, this fictionalized book of memories of a real-life figure retells history through the eyes of a child. Lush, full-color illustrations by Robert Byrd, plus archival photographs and documents, bring an extraordinary journey to life.

Africa Is My Home

0aeea468-bcd9-40db-8e65-24600aae4a40-1

Harold Courlander

George Herzog

Collection of traditional stories from West Africa 

And Other West African Stories

17 stories make up this unique collection of folktales brought to life by illustrations throughout the text. "The stories of West Africa are about men and animals, about kings, warriors, and hunters. They tell about clever people and stupid people, about good ones and bad ones, about how things and animals got to be how they are. Sometimes they are just tall tales. There are stories about Frog, Rabbit, Turtle, Guinea Fowl, and all the other animals that West Africans know. Some of the stories make you think. Some make you laugh. Here are some of the stories of the people of the forests, the seacoast, the hills, and the plains. The people of West Africa give them to you." A NEWBERY HONOR BOOK (1948)

The Cow-Tail Switch

00aa7ae2-52a6-409c-8d84-4633cfd9da14-1

#paperback #ya #history #africa #african #empire

Oklahoma

The Story of Three Great African Empires

Illustrated by Monetta Barnett. Tells the story of the rise of the great African empires - Ghana, Mali, and Songhay - and charts their progress from the eighth to the sixteenth century.

A Glorious Age in Africa

1e61ecb4-ad60-4d35-baaa-56ec643dd6ee-1

Virginia

A true story of survival against the odds

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

Ashley Bryan

This book contains stories representing four distinct African cultures. The author has captured the very essence of African storytelling. Through spirit and humor the author’s animal characters bring about and celebrate the triumph of common sense over superior strength. 

Alaska

And Other African Folk Poems

Includes four traditional tales told by the Hausa, Angolan, Masai, and Bushmen people of Africa.

Lion and the Ostrich Chicks (autographed)

23f4aa35-4b7c-4e7c-949b-ec42c38e8f94-1

Ishmael Beah

North Carolina

A Novel

A powerful novel about five young people, struggling to replace the homes they have lost with the one they have created together, from the internationally bestselling author of A Long Way Gone. Hidden away from a harsh and chaotic outside world, five young people have cobbled together a home for themselves in an abandoned airplane, a relic of their country's tumult. At seventeen, Elimane, the bookworm, is as street-smart as he is wise: the group's father figure. Clever Khoudimata is mother by default, helping scheme how to keep the younger boys-athletic, pragmatic Ndevui and thoughtful Kpindi-and especially little Namsa, their newest and youngest member-safe and fed. When Elimane makes himself of service to the shadowy William Handkerchief, it seems as if the small group may be able to keep the world at bay and their ad hoc family intact. But when Khoudi comes under the spell of the "Beautiful People"--the fortunate sons and daughters of the powerful and corrupt--the desire to resume an interrupted coming of age and forge her own destiny proves impossible to resist. A profound and tender portrayal of the connections we forge to survive the fate we're dealt, Little Family marks the further blossoming of a unique global voice.

Little Family

cd6364a1-8a1d-4ab8-b96b-4d05f56c2417-1

Robert H. Bates

State Failure in Late-Century Africa

When Things Fell Apart

2ff51ae7-1ade-47cc-943a-b4f590d0bd8d-0

Alexander McCall Smith

Florida

Precious Ramotswe is challenged by a strange intruder at her home, the appearance in her yard of a mysterious pumpkin, troubles at her husband's motorworks, and a vistor who forces her to confront a painful secret from her past.

In the Company of Cheerful Ladies

2725dfda-4ebb-44ae-b928-37c131217b41-1

An African Tale Retold

A Story A Story

#hardcover #relationships #women #men #inspiration #love #romance #new

What A Sista Should Do

Penguin Classics

When Prince Oroonoko's passion for the virtuous Imoinda arouses the jealousy of his grandfather, the lovers are cast into slavery and transported from Africa to the colony of Surinam. Oroonoko's noble bearing soon wins the respect of his English captors, but his struggle for freedom brings about his destruction. Inspired by Aphra Behn's visit to Surinam, Oroonoko (1688) reflects the author's romantic view of Native Americans as simple, superior peoples 'in the first state of innocence, before men knew how to sin'. The novel also reveals Behn's ambiguous attitude to African slavery - while she favoured it as a means to strengthen England's power, her powerful and moving work conveys its injustice and brutality.

Browse by categories

Save this search

Obi Onyefulu; Evie Safarewicz

Chinye

Guy A. Zona

The House of the Heart Is Never Full

Patricia McKissack

Monkey's Trick

Kathryn Stockett; Pierre Girard

La Couleur des Sentiments

Daphne Sheldrick

Love, Life, and Elephants

Katherine Applegate

Home of the Brave

Atinuke; Lauren Tobia (Illustrator)

Hooray for Anna Hibiscus!

Alexandra Fuller

Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen

Elizabeti's Doll

Chantal Grosléziat (Compiled by); Paul Mindy (Produced by); Elodie Nouhen (Illustrator)

Songs From the Baobab

Herman J. Viola; Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton

Facing the Lion

Monica Edinger

Africa Is My Home

Harold Courlander; George Herzog

The Cow-Tail Switch

Daniel Chu; Eliott Skinner; Moneta Barnett (Illustrator)

A Glorious Age in Africa

William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

Ashley Bryan

Lion and the Ostrich Chicks (autographed)

Ishmael Beah

Little Family

Robert H. Bates

When Things Fell Apart

Alexander McCall Smith

In the Company of Cheerful Ladies

Gail E. Haley

A Story A Story

Tiffany A Warren

What A Sista Should Do

Aphra Behn; Janet Todd (Introduction by)

Oroonoko, the Rover, and Other Works

Chinua Achebe

No Longer at Ease

Susan Verde

The Water Princess