Children’s Africana Book Awards 2014
Meet the 2014 Winners
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BEST BOOKS FOR OLDER READERS
Monica Edinger and Robert Byrd (illus.) Africa Is My Home, A Child of the Amistad (Candlewick Press)
“When a drought hits her homeland in Sierra Leone, nine-year-old Magulu is sold as a pawn by her father in exchange for rice. But before she can work off her debt, an unthinkable chain of events unfolds: a capture by slave traders; weeks in a dark and airless hold; a landing in Cuba, where she and three other children are sold and taken aboard the Amistad; a mutiny aboard ship; a trial in New Haven that eventually goes all the way to the Supreme Court and is argued in the Africans’ favor by John Quincy Adams.”
Anna Cottrell, Agbotadua Togbi Kumassah and Kwabena Poku (illus.) Once Upon a Time in Ghana: Traditional Stories Retold in English. Afram Publications (Ghana) Limited.
“This collection of original and traditional stories really is by the people, for the people. Imagine trekking across field after field under an intense African sun following a group of total strangers and hoping against hope that your old fashioned recording machine will work. Imagine then the joy when it all happens even though you do not understand a word of what is being said. This book gives an insight into each unique storyteller. Two and a half awe-inspiring hours spent with 84 year old Mr Nutsugah where one story flowed seamlessly into another. A day recording the fishermen in Anyako, as goats jumped up to eat bananas on the table, wide-eyed children wandered in and out, cocks crowed, men sawed and hammered just a few feet away. In Have, a wonderful and unexpected reception was given as the storytellers moved towards us, singing a welcome. Equally unexpected was the gift of bananas,”
BEST BOOKS FOR YOUNG CHILDREN
Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Douglas Abrams, A.G. Ford (illus.) Desmond and the Very Mean Word, A Story of Forgiveness. (Candlewick Press).
“While riding his new bicycle Desmond is hurt by the mean word yelled at him by a group of boys, but he soon learns that hurting back will not make him feel any better.” (Candlewick Press)
Mubina Hassanali Kirmani and Tony Siema (illus.) Bundle of Secrets, Savita Returns Home. (CreateSpace)
Savita’s journey in the dhow with a “bundle of secrets” from India that finally get revealed in her home in Kenya.
Children’s Africana Book Awards are Sponsored by:
Africa Access and the TITLE VI AFRICAN STUDIES OUTREACH CENTERS
University of California, Berkeley, Center for African Studies
Center for African Studies, University of Florida
African Studies Program, Indiana University
African Studies Center, Michigan State University
African Studies Consortium, University of Pennsylvania
African Studies Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Council on African Studies, Yale University
This page is sponsored by:
Harriet McGuire
Cheryl Hamlin Freeman
Dorothy Anderson
Jo Sullivan