Editorial Review

“This book is a beautiful presentation of Africa’s stunning range of people, places, and priorities. Children parade across the endpapers waving the flags of the fifty-four countries that make up the African continent. A full-page map shows country names and borders, along with rivers and the continent’s three main ecosystems. Introductory paragraphs read like a poem, distilling key demographics for anyone to understand. For example, Africa covers more area than the United States plus China, Japan, and Europe combined. And, if Africa were a pie with ten slices, four would be the deserts. Each of the sixteen subsequent spreads is dedicated to a family or individual in a different country. The first focuses on morning activities while the last features a bedtime moment. The daily routines—breakfast, going to school or work, shopping, studying, playing, and eating meals—will be familiar to readers, but each is shown in a manner that is unique to the featured country. Richly colored art shows culturally distinct details of urban and rural settings as experienced by the children. The art style is rather traditional, and each page has a lot of text. This visual and linguistic tone conveys simple steadiness and is never stale. Extensive backmatter shares brief blurbs of key demographic and historical facts about all of the African countries in this fascinating continent. This approach works as a very kid-friendly reference that tells the elaborate story of Africa in a personal way. Reviewer Rating: 4” –Children’s Literature