Global Read Webinar

Featured Speaker

Ekiuwa Aire

Wednesday February 3, 2022 7:00 pm

Idia of the Benin Kingdom
Our Ancestors

Idia of the Benin Kingdom introduces young readers to the story of Queen Idia of the ancient kingdom of Benin, who played an important role during the reign of her son, Esigie, who ruled Benin from 1504-1550. This story tells of a young Idia who pursued her dreams, believed in herself, and became the first Queen Mother of Benin.

Video of Webinar with Adrienne Wright

Originally aired: February 3, 2021

Adrienne Wright

Hector, A Boy, a Protest, and the Photograph that Changed Apartheid
Page Street Kids, 2019

On June 16, 1976, Hector Pieterson, an ordinary boy, lost his life after getting caught up in what was supposed to be a peaceful protest. Black South African students were marching against a new law requiring that they be taught half of their subjects in Afrikaans, the language of the White government. The story’s events unfold from the perspectives of Hector, his sister, and the photographer who captured their photo in the chaos.

Video of Webinar with Elizabeth Zunon

Originally aired: February 26, 2020, 7:00 EST

Three time CABA winner Elizabeth Zunon will discuss her award-winning CABA books and her career. Her 2019 book, Grandpa Cacao, A Tale of Chocolate from Farm to Family combines her talents as illustrator and author. The picture book connects past and present as a girl bakes a chocolate cake with her father and learns how her grandfather harvested cacao beans in Ivory Coast, West Africa.

CABA Winners by Elizabeth Zunon

Zunon, Elizabeth. Grandpa Cacao : a tale of chocolate, from farm to family. Bloombury, 2019.

As a little girl and her father work together to make her birthday cake, he tells the story of her Grandpa Cacao, a farmer from the Ivory Coast. Includes author’s note and a cake recipe.

Kamkwamba, William. The Boy who harnessed the wind. Dial Books for Young Children, 2012.

“When 14 year-old William Kamkwamba’s Malawi village was hit by a drought, everyone’s crops began to fail. Without enough money for food or school, William spent his days in the library and discovered how to bring electricity to his village by building a functioning windmill out of junkyard scraps.” –provided by publisher.

Paul, Miranda. One plastic bag : Isatou Ceesay and the recycling women of the Gambia. Millbrook, 2015.

Isatou Ceesay finds a way to recycle discarded plastic bags that have accumulated in dirty heaps in her Gambian village.

Video of Author Webinar with Arushi Raina

Originally aired February 15, 2019, 7:00 p.m. EST

Prologue | Chapter Three | Study Guide

Tradewind Books, 2018

When Morning Comes is written from the points-of-view of four young people living in Johannesburg
and its black township, Soweto in 1976. Through the eyes of Zanele, a black female student organiser, Mina, of South Asian background working at her father’s shop, Jack, an Oxford-bound white student, and Thabo, a teen gang-member or tsotsi – this book explores the roots of 1976’s … uprising.
Grade Level: YA

Bibliography on South Africa

Books

Biko, Steve. I Write What I Like. Harper, 1978.

Magoma, Sindiwe. Mother to Mother. Beacon, 2000.

Malepe, Lesego. Matters of Life and Death. Columbus, MS : Black Coral / Genesis Press, 2005.

Malepe, Lesego. Reclaiming Home : Diary of a Journey Through Post-Apartheid South Africa. She Writes Press. 2018.

Naidoo, Beverley. Out of Bounds. New York : HarperCollins, 2003.

Naidoo, Beverly. Journey to Jo’burg. Lippincott, 1985.

Mandela, Nelson. The Long Walk To Freedom Holt, 2000.

Mandela, Nelson. Nelson Mandela : The Authorized Comic Book. New York : W.W. Norton, 2009.

Wilson, Lindy. Steve Biko. Athens, OH : Ohio University Press, 2012

Online

SA History org: www.sahistory.org.za

The Mzungu Boy by Meja Mwangi

Originally Aired May 17, 2018

Children’s Africana Book Award Global Read Webinar 2018
Meja Mwangi, author of The Mzungu Boy

Originally Aired May 17, 2018

“The novel is set in the early 1950s as the MauMau movement was gathering strength in the “White” Highlands. When the boy Kariuki meets “mzungu” (white guy), the grandson of the plantation owner, the story takes off. As the boys become closer friends, their surrounding world becomes more fearful and violent. Still, the two boys try to have fun together and understand each other’s strange ways. …. Readers will learn much about the nature and brutality of colonialism from this novel and its effect on ordinary people.” (Barbara Brown)

“Mwangi’s work won the prestigious Deutscher Jugendliteraturepreis by winning the hearts and minds of both youth and adult jury members, no small accomplishment.” (Lori Walker)

Get ready: The Mzungu Boy Bibliography
Join the online discussion: Wednesday, May 17th with Meja Mwangi, Kenyan author of The Mzungu Boy. The novel explores the nature and brutality of British colonialism in Kenya during the “Mau-Mau” rebellion in the 1950s.
Moderator: Wambui Githiora-Updike, Ed.D.- retired teacher at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School in Cambridge, Massachusetts and author of Wanjira, a Novel

Once a month, the World Area Book Awards, [Américas Award, Middle East Book Award, South Asia Book Award, and Children’s Africana Book Award/CABA] sponsor a 60 minute webinar on a book recognized by one of the awards and facilitate a discussion with the author on how to incorporate the book into the classroom. The spring Global Read Webinar Reading Across Culture series focuses on social justice. We encourage you to read the books with your colleagues, students, and community, and then join us to hear more from the author.

The Children’s Africana Book Award is sponsored by the Outreach Council of the African Studies Association.

Questions? Brenda.Randolph@Howard.edu

Bibliography

Young People

Naidoo, Beverley. Burn My Heart. New York, NY : HarperCollins / Amistad, 2009

Teachers

Anderson, David. Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire. Norton, 2005.

Boston University. Mau Mau Rebellion.

Boston University Reviews of The Mzungu Boy.

Brown, Barbara. The Mzungu Boy (Review) Africa Access Review..

I especially appreciate the book for telling an important story well-the story of settler colonialism in Kenya. Mzungu Boy offers a tonic to the disturbingly widespread Out of Africa syndrome, where the whites are strong pioneers out there alone facing an unforgiving environment. In Mzungu Boy we learn the same story, but from the opposite perspective, that of a young boy whose father works long harsh hours as the cook for a white settler family.

Ngugi wa Thiong’o. Weep Not Child. Penguin Classics; Reprint edition, 2012.

Two brothers, Njoroge and Kamau, stand on a garbage heap and look into their futures: Njoroge is to attend school, while Kamau will train to be a carpenter. But this is Kenya, and the times are against them: In the forests, the Mau Mau is waging war against the white government, and the two brothers and their family need to decide where their loyalties lie. For the practical Kamau, the choice is simple, but for Njoroge the scholar, the dream of progress through learning is a hard one to give up.

The first East African novel published in English, Weep Not, Child is a moving book about the effects of the infamous Mau Mau uprising on the lives of ordinary men and women, and on one family in particular.

The contents of this project were developed under grant #P015A140031 from the U.S. Department of Education. However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the U.S. Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.

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