Recently in Africa Children's Books Category

So the other day, I talked about how Dounko and some of the FAVL librarians just recently distributed Kathy Knowles color and Pain-Crocodile books to students who received vouchers from the LED lamp research project.I promised more pictures, but I have something even more exciting! A video! (I'm still honing my video editing skills, so bear with me). So without further ado, I give you LED Project : Distribution of Books December 2011.

Recently we had a distribution of books in village for the LED project that took place earlier this year. Through the lottery, some kids received lamps while others received vouchers for books. The books were distributed to students by the librarians, teachers and Dounko; they were the Kathy Knowles color books in Jula. Each child received 4 color books and one Pain-Crocodile book. They were very excited to have them! Dounko brought many photos to Ouaga with him. Tomorrow I will post more of them, but today I just wanted to share my favorite photo. It is of Paul, a primary school student in Sara. I worked really closely with him during reading camp. At the beginning of the week, he could not even read the alphabet and was very shy. By the end of the week, he was able to sound out words and read simple sentences on his own. I was so proud of him during the final evaluation when he volunteered to read a paragraph aloud for all the students. He didn't make one error. Here is a picture of him smiling with his brand-new books!

The "Akissi" series is similar to "Aya de Yopougon," which Abouet also authored. Akissi, like Aya, is a young girl living in Yopougon, Ivory Coast.  Akissi, however, is about six years old, with the series targeting a much younger audience.
"Akissi: Attaque de chats" consists of seven mini stories.  The themes and storyline are quite childish, mostly revolving around Akissi fighting with her older brother Fofana. Despite her young age, Akissi is one tough little girl. She's adventurous, confident and stubborn. In one story she's determined to prove to her brother and his friends that she, a girl, can play soccer. In another story she comes home covered with bruises and a black eye after fighting to save her beloved pet, a monkey, from becoming a neighbor's dinner.

Even if it's supposed to target young people, I still found myself laughing out loud. I thought the title story was great. Akissi's mother asks her to bring a sack of fish to a family friend. When giving her directions, instead of giving her street names, they are more like: Go to the blue house, turn left, when you pass the woman selling fried donuts, keep straight. You'll see the tailor's store on the right..." Even in Burkina's capital of Ouaga, directions were pretty much explained in this exact way. Akissi of course gets lost, and reminded me of the countless times I found myself wandering the streets of Ouaga, trying to find the damn red door next to the woman selling peanuts.
The book also received thumbs up from Elisée. I caught him snickering out loud and when he was finished he said that he experienced many of the things mentioned in the book as a child growing up in the Ivory Coast. One story mentions two movies that Elisée says were incredibly popular when he was a kid and watched countless times. The book also mentions the word "Kokota", meaning when another kid hits you on top of your head with their knuckle, which he remembered suffering from quite often.

I have a feeling "Akissi" will be another hit in the library, and hopefully will bring in younger readers.

Around this time last year, my fellow PCV, Sabrina, and myself were looking for materials in bookstores in Ouaga for the girls' clubs in our respective villages. We browsed and eventually bought a couple of things, but we were discouraged (1) by how expensive books were for the average PCV who wanted to teach their kids a thing or two about good health practices and (2) by how out-of-reach the reading materials were for the average Burkinabè village child. The images and stories were not relevant to their lives and the language level was such that we figured we would probably end up having to teach French lessons instead of health lessons (and try explaining the literary French tense to a kid who can't conjugate most verbs correctly in the present!). So we did what PCVs do best when we find our resources inadequate - we decided to create our own! And there, in the DIACFA parking lot, was born the idea of a series of children's health books in very, very simple French with drawings and stories the kids would not only learn from, but relate to as well. The kids would be named Awa and Hamidou; they would eat tô for dinner; they would take their afternoon rest on mats outside. Our idea was that PCVs could have these books available to them through the PCBF website, be able to print them off at no cost, take them back to village for girls' clubs, demonstrations, health lessons, etc. to more easily teach their kids about how to better take care of their health.

 

And I'm proud to say that after much procrastination and anticipation, the first of book in the series is ready for distribution! It's the story of Issaka, a baby who is sick with diarrhea, and how a family friend, Aminata, teaches his mother, Awa, how to better care for him (see the cover page below). As a FAVL volunteer, I thought this would be a great material to have available at our libraries, and luckily, Michael agreed. So we're going to print some copies and send them to the librarians, who can use them in animations. I'm also working on translating them into English so we can send some copies to the Ghana libraries.

 

Coming soon: the second in the series, a tale that recounts the importance of washing one's hands (which will be great for Global Hand Washing Day on October 15^th)!

Discovered this wonderful blog while reading a nice discussion of children's books and publishing....

Librarians at Bologna - Part 2: La Joie Par Les Livres Last week, I talked about Patricia Aldana's address to the International Meeting of Children's Librarians in Bologna. Our second speaker on that occasion was Viviana Quiñones, who spoke to us about the French national children's book organisation La Joie par les Livres. After running through its history, she told us about some of their initiatives in promoting children's books, such as travelling exhibitions of African books and books about the Arab world, the Caribbean and around the Indian Ocean. They also publish two magazines: "La Revue des livres pour enfants" and "Takam Tikou", which focuses on multicultural books in French. Of particular interest was what Viviana had to say about their work with libraries and independent publishers in Africa. Like Patricia Aldana, she stressed how important it is for children in Africa to find their own experiences mirrored in the books they read: and to read books that are reasonably up to date and written in their own language. In 1985, internationally renowned librarian Geneviève Patte visited Mali, where she found that most of the library books were inadequate... In 1987 she set up a service within La Joie par les Livres to collaborate with libraries and the publishers of African children's books to promote locally published books. La Joie par les Livres also trains librarians, which contributes to raising the status of the libraries in the eyes of local communities. Viviana said that there are still challenges, for example, with the distribution of books, but that in the world of African publishing, there are some inspirational stories. Afterwards, a book was recommended to me called Courage and Consequence: Women Publishing in Africa edited by Mary Jay and Susan Kelly and published by the African Books Collective. In fact, I had been sitting right next to Pili Dumea from Tanzania and across the room from Antoinette Correa from Senegal - both librarians turned publisher, whom I'll be talking about in Part 3...

From the Summer 2009 issue of The ALAN Review, a  journal published by the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of the National Council of Teachers of English, an interesting short piece by Vivian Yenika-Agbaw, with great help for teachers who want to incorporate Africa reading into their classrooms....

Of the eighty-eight medals awarded between 1922 and 2009, none has gone to an author whose story is set in continental Africa. However, three honor books have African settings: Harold Courlander and George Herzog's The Cow-Tail Switch and Other West African Stories (1947/74), Nancy Farmer's The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm (1994), and A Girl Named Disaster (1996). The first of the three honor books is a collection of folktales, the second is a science fiction young adult novel,and the third is a realistic fiction novel. 

Back in March we visited "Le Salon du Livre de Paris," where we met Natacha N'Guessan working at the Michel Lafon publishing stand. We discussed their brand new "Bouba et Zaza" series. The nicely illustrated African children's books (available in French and English) help discuss concepts that may be difficult for adults and parents to explain to children. At the end of our conversation, Natacha promised to send us a few copies. True to her word, we recently received a package with 6 different "Bouba et Zaza" books as well as two posters. The books focus on topics such as how to protect oneself from malaria, HIV/AIDS, accepting difference (living with a disability), proper hygiene, cultural identity and more.
We'll rotate the books around the 11 libraries so that each librarian can use them during activities and see the books' popularity. I personally think these books are fantastic and if a FAVL supporter is interested in donating books, they would be a great choice! Check out more at http://michel-lafon-education.com/

This is actually the first-ever solicited book review on the FAVL blog.  I got a free copy of the book, but no payment.  Stephen Davie lives in Djibo, northern Burkina Faso, and knows Charley and Emilie, FAVL's two Peace Corps volunteers. So I guess he's been reading the blog, and when his new book came out he sent along an email asking if I had noticed it, and then was kind enough to have the publisher, Anderson Press, send a copy.

The book is a good adventure story, with high appeal for the 10-14 year old boy crowd.  Elliot liked it just fine (of course, he's lived in Ouagadougou).  I thought it was good too.  Very nicely written.  Davies has excellent grammar, plotting, style.  And I enjoyed all the references to Burkina.

So definitely recommendable to anyone with Sahel experience and young readers in the household.

A very short plot summary is de rigueur: Jake Knight is son of British Ambassador.  he's the lead, but his sister Kas has a big role too. They are kidnapped in Burkina. Lot's of adventures and interesting characters.  There is a strong social justice component.  No dystopia here, just a lot of earnest fun and hope. 

Personally, I'd rather have had the Burkinabè outlaw Yacouba Sor character be the central character, and ditch the expatriate children altogether.  I'm hoping Steve will perhaps venture out into something along those lines?  There's little market for that, I suppose.  But then, what a fun adventure, to create and lead the market for adventure fiction in the Sahel... doing what Alexander McCall Smith did for the African detective novel.

From the NY Times:

A new meningococcal vaccine, just introduced in West Africa, has produced very encouraging results, according to the public-private partnership coordinating its distribution. This year's meningitis season is almost over, and there have been only four confirmed cases of meningitis A in Burkina Faso, the first country to offer the shot to all citizens under 30 (above, a child was vaccinated there). Three infections were in people from Togo, where the vaccine is not used; they had crossed the border for care. The fourth was in a Burkinan who was not vaccinated.

That's Burkinbè, not Burkinan!  Jeez.  At least it wasn't Burkinista.

So my library-related thought... wouldn;t it be great if Gates Foundation had a small grant of $2,000 and we would create a picture book about the vaccine and meningitis and global health?  Sweet.  Any Gates people reading this?  Make it so!