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Babingo: The Nobel Rebel
In Pointe-Noire of the 1950’s lived Paul Makouta, a “civilized” and westernized native who was very proud of communicating exclusively in French with Madeleine Mamatouka, his wife, Alex his only son, and the other children of his household. Under no circumstance did Makouta allow the members of his family speak the language of Metropolitan France with the slightest trace of a Bantu accent. Again, anyone who dared speak Kituba, an indigenous language, with the family’s domestic staff was liable to severe reprimand.
Clearly, the father’s intransigence was at odds with the communicative practices in the neighborhood and of children commuting daily to school. And it was only natural for Tessa, a fellow pupil from the neighborhood, to successfully convince her teenage friend, Alex Babingo, of the absurdity of Makouta’s directive. Little did Alex Babingo realize that his initial acceptance of the irrationality of the father’s prohibition in colonized Congo was only the start of a trajectory which, from the other side of the world, would impel his return to the very roots of his culture and ancestral traditions in the now independent Republic of Congo or Congo-Brazzaville. Babingo, the Noble Rebel is a poignant and pulsating advocacy for the mainstreaming of indigenous languages into the curriculum of African countries, not least those belonging to the French-speaking world.
₵50.00Babingo: The Nobel Rebel
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Abla Poku – La Reine Baoulé (Hardcover, French)
Age Range: 7 – 10 years
Ce livre illustré d’enfants illustre l’histoire d’Abena Poku. Il était une fois, un royaume puissant dans la partie centrale de l’ancien Ghana connu sous le nom de Royaume d’Asante. Il avait un roi puissant connu sous le nom Otumfuo Osei Tutu I, l’Asantehene. Osei Tutu J’ai eu une nièce appelée Abena Poku. Après quelques troubles Abena Poku et son peuple s’installèrent dans la région entre les rivières Comoe et Bandama dans la partie orientale de la Côte d’Ivoire et fondèrent un royaume avec Abena Poku comme première reine. Son royaume est devenu le royaume de Baoulé. Abena Poku a ainsi fondé une dynastie qui a survécu à ce jour.
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The Phone Call (Hardcover)
Age Range: 7 – 12 years
God is perhaps just a phone call away! Before the invention of the telephone, talking to people in faraway places was difficult. Now, we can talk to our friends and family from wherever we are. What would you do if you received a phone call from God? That’s the situation the child in this story finds her/himself in one day. The idea of God being just a phone call away is what makes this story so exciting.
Kofi Anyidoho uses the magic of the telephone to give us a story about a child’s curious but lively chatter with God. And the beautiful illustrations by Sela Adjei help to make the story delightful and unforgettable. This book is perhaps most suitable for 7-9 year-olds, but older children and even teenagers and adults will also enjoy reading it because the story reminds us of unanswered questions of our childhood some of which remain with us for the rest of our life. Anyidoho himself once reminded us that “There is a Child in Every Adult and an Adult in Every Child”. With The Phone Call, Kofi Anyidoho, the well-known poet and author of Akpokplo (a play for children written in Ewe and in English), has made a significant contribution to literature for children in Ghana and Africa.
₵55.00The Phone Call (Hardcover)
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Mama’s Amazing Cover Cloth (Hardcover)
Age Range: 7 – 12 years
1st Prize, Children’s Storybook, Ghana Association of Writers Awards 2019Do you know that the African woman’s cover cloth has many uses? In this delightful book that young children will enjoy, a little girl shares the many uses of her mother’s amazing cover cloth.₵55.00 -
Yennenga: The Dagomba Princess (Hardcover)
Age Range: 7 – 12 years
Yennenga was very atheletic and she learnt to shoot arrows, and throw spears. She also learnt the art of horse riding. Her father gave her a special stallion called Ouedrago. At age fourteen she was a very skillful horse rider and an adept javelin thrower. Her father therefore took her to battles. She was a very good warrior! Her father became very proud of her and, in fact, made her a battalion commander. At fourteen years of age, Yennenga started helping her father in battles. Because of her skill in battle, her father refused to give her away in marriage. Yennenga loved fighting for her father in war but she also yearned to be a married woman and have children of her own. However, her father refused to give her away to any of the many suitors who sought her hand in marriage.
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Mimi Mystery (Hardcover)
Age Range: 7 – 12 years
A little girl with an angelic voice is banned by her mother from singing in public because it is taboo in her society for a respectable female to sing in public. Belayn is devastated! She loves singing! How does little Belayn do what she loves most without offending her family?
₵55.00Mimi Mystery (Hardcover)
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Gizo-Gizo: Tatsuniya daga Tafkin Zongo (Hausa, Hardcover)
Age Range: 5 – 12 years
Hausa language edition
Gizo-Gizo! was awarded Best Book for young people in the 25th Children’s Africana Book Awards.
In Hausa culture, you always begin telling a story in the same way: The storyteller says, “Ga ta nan ga ta nanku!” “I am about to begin!” And the children respond, “Tazo Mujita!” “We are all ears!”
Using story as the primary learning, teaching and engagement tool, the Zongo Story Project strives to elevate proficiencies in oral, written, and visual forms of literacy; promote the knowledge building of local history, local culture and local contemporary concerns; and lay the crucial foundation for the acquisition of vital twenty-first century critical thinking skills. The conceptual framework for this project originated out of a larger, community-based initiative called the Zongo Water Project, whose mission is to use water as a way to improve the quality of life for the Zongo.
Working closely with local teachers, Emily Williamson carried out a series of educational workshops at the Hassaniyya Quranic School in the summers of 2012, 2013, and 2014 to teach students about local water and environmental concerns. Employing the story as the foundational element, Emily engaged students in dialogue, shared readings, performances, writing exercises, and visual art, culminating in community drama performances and original folktales.
The illustrations and text of this book grew directly out of the work produced in these workshops.
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Africa Writes Back: The African Writers Series & the Launch of African Literature
June 17, 2008, is the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart by Heinemann. This publication provided the impetus for the foundation of the African Writers Series in 1962 with Chinua Achebe as the editorial adviser. This narrative, drawing liberally on the correspondence with the authors, concentrates on the adventurous first twenty-five years.
Africa Writes Back: The African Writer’s Series & the Launch of African Literature captures the energy of literary publishing in a new and undefined field. Portraits of the leading characters and the many consultants and readers providing reports and advice to new and established writers make Africa Writes Back a stand-out book. James Currey’s voice and insights are an added bonus.
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A Danish Jew in West Africa: Wulff Joseph Wulff Biography And Letters (1836-1842)
Wulff’s life history is of considerable interest in itself. In her biographical essay (Part I) Selena Axelrod Winsnes portrays him as a ‘marginal man’: being a Jew in Denmark at the beginning of the 19th century was to some extent an uphill struggle for those who sought public recognition, and Wulff did not escape discrimination in his administrative career at Christiansborg either, although special circumstances allowed him to hold important positions, and yet, only for the short term.
Paradoxically, on his arrival to the Gold Coast Wulff — as a Jew — was placed in a middle position in the racial hierarchy dominating the mind-set of his superiors in Copenhagen — between Africans and Europeans. In many respects he shared the fate of Euro-Africans, straddling two worlds and being ‘sealed off’ from the top echelons of the European establishments on the Coast.
This book comprises two parts. The first is a biographical presentation of Wulff Joseph Wulff , a Danish Jew. It is an essay concerning the last six years of his life, spent on the Gold Coast of West Africa, based on letters he wrote to his family in Denmark. Those letters were published in 1917 as Da Guinea var Dansk [When Guinea was Danish], by Carl Behrens, a member of his family in Denmark. The second part of the book is an edited translation of the letters from Danish into English.
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Two Views from Christiansborg Castle Vol II: A Description of the Guinea Coast and its Inhabitants
Selena Axelrod Winsnes has been engaged, since 1982, in the translation into English, and editing of Danish language sources to West African history, sources published from 1697 to 1822, the period during which Denmark-Norway was an actor in the Transatlantic Slave Trade. It comprises five major books written for the Scandinavian public. They describe all aspects of life on the Gold Coast [Ghana], the Middle Passage and the Danish Caribbean islands [US Virgin Islands], as seen by five different men. Each had his own agenda and mind-set, and the books, both singly and combined, hold a wealth of information – of interest both to scholars and lay readers. They provide important insights into the cultural baggage the enslaved Africans carried with them to the America’s.
One of the books, L.F. Rømer’s A Reliable Account of the Coast of Guinea was runner-up for the prestigious International Texts Prize awarded by the U.S. African Studies Association.
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Two Views from Christiansborg Castle Vol I: A Brief and Truthful Description of a Journey to and from Guinea
Selena Axelrod Winsnes has been engaged, since 1982, in the translation into English, and editing of Danish language sources to West African history, sources published from 1697 to 1822, the period during which Denmark-Norway was an actor in the Transatlantic Slave Trade. It comprises five major books written for the Scandinavian public. They describe all aspects of life on the Gold Coast [Ghana], the Middle Passage and the Danish Caribbean islands [US Virgin Islands], as seen by five different men. Each had his own agenda and mind-set, and the books, both singly and combined, hold a wealth of information – of interest both to scholars and lay readers. They provide important insights into the cultural baggage the enslaved Africans carried with them to the America’s.
One of the books, L.F. Rømer’s A Reliable Account of the Coast of Guinea was runner-up for the prestigious International Texts Prize awarded by the U.S. African Studies Association.
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Mulgheta: A Day in the Life of a Blind Footballer (Hardcover)
Age Range: 7 – 12 years
Mulgheta is one of the best blind footballers, fitness trainers and masseurs in Germany.
We will accompany this master in the art of life through a day which is just like any other day for him. We will read Braille with him, hear the signals for the blind at a pedestrian crossing, taste luscious tomatoes and smell the trash cans.
Patricia Thoma opens up a new way of looking at our environment with her picture book — the “gaze” of a blind person.
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The Talking Baobab Tree (Hardcover)
Age Range: 7 – 12 years
A rabbit, lost in the desert and saved by a baobab tree, outwits a stronger, envious neighbor.
“Guess what! The Baobab tree is saving the jewels for you! There they are, the pictures on every page (and the wisdom that comes with them).” — Dr Mary Catherine Bateson, Author and Cultural Anthropologist
“A lovely folktale on the importance of wisdom, truth and keeping your word.” — Marie-Monique Steckel, President, French Institute Alliance Francaise, New York
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An Ethnographic Study of Northern Ghanaian Conflicts: Towards a Sustainable Peace
Conflict in Northern Ghana appears to be increasing in amplitude and frequency and its effects are getting more devastating. It is the view of this book that The Government of Ghana and civil society organisations involved in aspects of conflict management have approached peace issues in the region with an inadequate understanding of the local issues that divide and unite the people, or using sufficient resources to preempt conflict.
In 2003 The Mole V summit was held in Damongo to discuss strategic directions for comprehensive development and poverty reduction in Northern Ghana as a mechanism for supporting conflict management.
It is the aim of this publication to contribute to the proposed plan by suggesting past and current conflict management resources and mechanisms which could be employed. The suggestions are informed by surveys, which are outlined in the book, of particular conflicts in the three northern Regions of Ghana between 2006 and 2008 – their histories, causes and efforts and their resolution.
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Yennenga La Princesse de Dagomba (French Edition, Hardcover)
Age Range: 7 – 12 years
Yennenga, la fille du roi de Dagomba, apprit tôt à monter à cheval et à se battre comme un homme. Ainsi, son père aimait l’emmener combattre avec lui, car elle était une excellente guerrière! À cause de cela, le père de Yennenga refusa de la donner en mariage. Et elle qui désirait vivement se marier et avoir des enfants, se disputa avec son père qui la mit en prison. Mais elle réussit à fuir le Royaume…
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