Thursday, May 1, 2008

Moja Means One


Moja Means One: Swahili Counting Book is writte by Muriel Feelings and illustrated by Tom Feelings. It is a Caldecott Honor Book and can be included in the multi-cultural informational text genre. It was published in 1971 by Dial Books for Young Readers.
This is a counting book that teaches children to count in Swahili, while also giving kids interesting facts about African culture. The authors note at the beginning explains her desire for children from Africa to know their home language and culture and also for people to start learning a language that is so central to African culture in general. She lived in Africa for two years and learned to speak the language pretty well. While she is not from Africa, she did live their and so she has probably done a good job of relaying the culture accurately. This is a great book for teaching young kids to count even in English. All the numbers are written in English and Swahili and each picture shows the number of things that is written on that page. The pictures in the book are basic black and white sketches with a lot of shading. I loved that this book was so simple and yet tied in such a wonderful and rich culture that not many people know much about. I think the more books written about African culture the more connected our world would be and the more support they would receive to fight disease and hunger. This book also gives kids a look into another culture. Kids are very curious about other countries and this book relates their culture to something as basic as counting that most 2 year olds know how to do. This is just a great, simplistic book to teach kids how to count and also to share the world with them.

No comments: