• Black Barbie (Hardcover)

    Age Range: 7 – 12 years

    Black Barbie, by London-based animator and illustrator Comfort Arthur, is the picture book adaptation of her award winning animated short film by the same name.

    Voiced by British-Ghanaian actress, television presenter and producer Ama K. Abebrese, the story grew out of the filmmaker’s own experience with the use of relaxers and skin bleaching products while growing up in the U.K.

    After debuting in 2016, Black Barbie became an international sensation, screened at various film festivals in over 50 countries and winning numerous awards, including Best Animated Film at the Ghana Movie Awards and Best Spoke Word Film at the Realtime Film Festival in Lagos, Nigeria.

    With powerful moments of sadness, humor and introspection, Black Barbie explores the artist’s personal journey toward self-acceptance, empowerment and loving the skin she’s in.

    While intended to be a great catalyst for discussion for children of all background, in the words of Dr. Tyner, “This powerful book reminds every young Black woman that you are more than enough. You are the standard of beauty, with your glowing melanin skin, the intricacy of your precious locks, and the vibrancy of Black Girl Magic that fills every room that you enter.”

  • The Kaya-Girl

    2012 First Place Burt Award for African Young Adult Literature Finalist

    “I’m Abena,” I said in Twi.

    “I’m Faiza,” she said in a language I would soon find out was called Dagbanli.”

    An accidental meeting in Accra’s bustling Makola market makes an impact that is to affect the destinies of two extraordinary young women. For Abena, the open-minded girl from a comfortable family, the meeting is an opportunity to learn about the culture of the other girl and to appreciate the dignity that we often fail to see in the lives of the underprivileged of our country. For Faiza, the eponymous Kaya girl, the encounter with the richer girl is to provide a joyful adventure in her otherwise harsh existence and provided the inspiration that will transform her life.

    The Kaya-Girl is a wonderful story, told with warm humor, about two young and confident people from vastly different Ghanaian worlds.

     

    The Kaya-Girl

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  • Akosua’s Gift

    Age Range: 7 – 10 years

    Original Ghanaian story by Angela Christian and retold by Kathy Knowles; illustrations by Edmund Opare

    A “Notable Book” designation by the 2012 Children’s Africana Book Award jury.

    Akosua learned to make clay pots by watching her mother. She decides to make a water pot to present as a gift to her sister on her wedding day.

    Akosua’s Gift

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  • Crossing the Stream

    Ato hasn’t visited his grandmother’s house since he was seven. He’s heard the rumours that she’s a witch, and his mother has told him he must never sit on the old couch on her porch. Now here he is, on that exact couch, with a strange-looking drink his grandmother has given him, wondering if the rumours are true. What’s more, there’s a freshly dug hole in her yard that Ato suspects may be a grave meant for him.

    Meanwhile at school, Ato and his friends have entered a competition to win entry to Nnoma, the island bird sanctuary that Ato’s father helped create. But something is poisoning the community garden where their project is housed, and Ato sets out to track down the culprit. In doing so, he brings his estranged mother and grandmother back together, and begins healing the wounds left on the family by his father’s death years before.

    And that hole in the yard? It is a grave, but not for the purpose Ato feared, and its use brings a tender, celebratory ending to this deeply felt and universal story of healing and love from one of Ghana’s most admired children’s book authors.

  • 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.

  • Mama’s Amazing Cover Cloth (Hardcover)

    Age Range: 7 – 12 years

    1st Prize, Children’s Storybook, Ghana Association of Writers Awards 2019
    Do 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.
  • The Cross Drums (Hardcover)

    Age Range: 7 – 12 years

    Selected by the International Youth Library, Munich, for the 2009 White Ravens list of outstanding new books for children and young adults

    “The drums called to each other. The drummers hailed each other and the calling and hailing got stronger and stronger. Then it got so strong that the drums and the drummers began to walk to the gates. All the children that had gathered round them got up and followed. They followed the drummers out through the gates and on to the open field.

    “Together they danced on the path, the same path that brought the men who came to throw the flames that burned their homes. They danced happily on the path across the a continued to follow the drummers.

    “They followed them to the baobab tree. And there under the tree, they came face to face with other children. They had come from the other village but they too swayed and skipped and hopped and laughed. They too were happy, just like them.”

    Another exciting story promoting peace and tolerance from the internationally renowned writer and illustrator, Meshack Asare of Ghana.

  • The Canoe’s Story (Hardcover)

    Age Range: 6 – 12 years

    “But I did not have time yet to stare and wonder. The men wrestled me out of the machine and pushed and towed me across the sand to the shade of coconut palms. The moment I touched the ground, I heard a chorus of voices saying, ‘Akwaaba. Welcome to the coast!’ It was from the group of canoes and I was rather surprised that they spoke my language. But needed not be surprised. I had forgotten that they all came from the same forest in the hitherland where I too had come from.”

    Written by Ghanaian author Meshack Asare, The Canoe’s Story is a children’s book about a tree’s journey from the forest to becoming a canoe sailing the ocean. Told from the tree’s perspective, this richly illustrated story, portrays the strong ties between man and nature.

  • The Blue Marble (Hardcover)

    Age Range: 9 – 15 years

    Published in association with UNESCO, this originally illustrated book is the result of the first in a planned series of workshops convened by UNESCO for authors, illustrators and publishers of children’s books in African and Arabic countries. The idea of the workshops is to produce children’s books that deal with the UNESCO themes of tolerance, cultural diversity, understanding between peoples, and peace. The story, The Blue Marble, was selected for publication by the participants of the workshop held in Namibia, and collectively illustrated under the guidance of the prize-winning children’s book author and illustrator, Meshack Asare.

    The narrative tells of three young sisters, Nafula, Ajambo and Samanya whose mother has died and father been made unemployed. The girls battle through life together hawking freshly made pancakes, in an effort to raise money to pay their school fees. They live in fear of their father wanting to get married again – to a woman: who subsequently becomes their dreaded stepmother figure. Then one of the girls, Ajambo, finds a lucky marble, and things slowly begin to look up for them.

  • Sosu’s Call (Upgraded Version)

    Age Range: 12+ years

    Sosu’s Call, won the 1999 UNESCO 1st prize for Children’s and Young People’s Literature in the Service of Tolerance. It is listed as one of the top twelve titles of Africa’s 100 Best Books; and has been named an Honor Book for Young Children by the African Studies Association’s Children’s Africana Book Committee, as a contribution to accurate and balanced material on Africa for children.

    Beautifully illustrated, the story tells of Sosu, a young disabled boy who cannot walk. Sosu misses going to school and all the activities of the other children. His village is on a lagoon, and one day when everyone is away fishing, working in the fields or at school, he raises the alarm with his drumming, and saves the village from total destruction by the sea. His heroism is rewarded when a wheelchair is donated and at last he can go to school.

  • Abla Poku – The Baoulé Queen (Hardcover)

    Age Range: 7 – 10 years

    This colour illustrated children’s book tells the story of Abena Poku. Once upon a time, there was a mighty kingdom in the central part of ancient Ghana known as the Asante Kingdom. It had a powerful king known as Otumfuo Osei Tutu I, the Asantehene. Osei Tutu I had a niece called Abena Poku.

    After some unrest Abena Poku and her people settled in the area between the Comoe and Bandama rivers in the eastern part of the Ivory Coast and founded a kingdom of their own with Abena Poku as the first queen. Her kingdom became known as the Baoulé Kingdom. Abena Poku thus founded a dynasty which has survived to date.

  • Voice of America

    Set in Nigeria and America, Voice of America moves from boys and girls in villages and refugee camps to the disillusionment and confusion of young married couples living in America, and back to bustling Lagos. It is the story of two countries and the frayed bonds between them.

    In ‘Waiting’, two young refugees make their way through another day, fighting for meals and hoping for a miracle that will carry them out of the camp; in ‘A Simple Case’, the boyfriend of a prostitute gets rounded up by the local police and must charm his fellow prisoners for protection and survival; and in ‘Miracle Baby’, the trials of pregnancy and mothers-in-law are laid bare in a woman’s return to her homeland.

    Written with exhilarating energy and warmth, the stories in Voice of America are full of humour, pathos and wisdom, marking the debut of an immensely talented new voice.

  • A Possible Future: An Anthology of the Best Nigerian Writing (1789 – 2018)

    Spanning two hundred years and multiple genres, A Possible Future uses gorgeous excerpts from over eighty literary works to showcase the inventiveness in Nigerian letters and the various zeitgeists—colonialism, despotism, Afropolitanism, postcolonialism, race and sexuality—that have defined it throughout the country’s history. The writers whose works are represented here—A. Igoni Barrett, Taiye Selasi, Gbenga Adesina, Helen Oyeyemi, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, Niyi Osundare, and many more—remind the world of our fraught yet rich literary backstory and point towards the immense possibilities awaiting us in its future.

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