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Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters

Mufaro

Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters by John Steptoe, 1987.

This story, based on an African folktale, is somewhat similar to other folktales and fairy tales from other parts of the world such as Cinderella, Mother Holle, and Vasilisa the Beautiful, where a girl with a kind, hard-working nature triumphs over a mean sibling because someone in authority recognizes her good nature and rewards it.

In a small village in Africa, a man named Mufaro has two daughters, Manyara and Nyasha.  Both girls are beautiful, strong, and clever, but they have very different natures.  Nyasha is kind, gentle, and patient.  Manyara is bad-tempered, jealous, and self-centered.  She frequently taunts Nyasha about how, one day, she will be the queen and her sister will be her servant.  When Nyasha asks her why she is so mean, Manyara says that she hates the way people praise Nyasha for her kindness.  She thinks that Nyasha is their father’s favorite child, and she wants to prove that Nyasha’s “silly kindness is only weakness.”

MufaroSisters

Since there is nothing that Nyasha can do to change her sister’s mind or attitude, she just continues doing her usual chores and being kind to people and animals.  In particular, she makes friends with a small garden snake, knowing that his presence in her garden will keep away pests.

Manyara is sneaky and always behaves herself when their father is present, so Mufaro doesn’t know about the troubles between his daughters.  When a messenger arrives, saying that the Great King is seeking a wife and that beautiful, worthy girls are summoned to his city so that he can choose from among them, Mufaro is proud and eager to present both of his beautiful daughters.  Manyara tries to persuade her father to send only her, but Mufaro is firm that both girls must present themselves for the king’s decision.

Manyara decides that the only way to get the better of her sister is to be the first to arrive and present herself to the king, so she slips out in the middle of the night and begins the journey alone.  However, both the journey and the king are not what Manyara thinks they are.  Along the way, Manyara encounters various strange characters who ask for help or offer advice, but thinking that a queen doesn’t need to pay attention to others or do anything she doesn’t want to, Manyara ignores them all.

Nyasha, on the other hand, gets ready to leave at the appointed time in the morning.  Everyone worries about Manyara but decides that the best thing to do is to follow her to the city, since she seems to have gone on ahead.  As Nyasha travels with the rest of their friends and family, she listens to the people Manyara ignored and shows them kindness.

MufaroCity

When they finally reach the city, Nyasha encounters a terrified Manyara, who hysterically insists that when she went to meet the king, she found a horrible monster instead.  However, like everything else, it’s just another part of the test, and Nyasha is the one who passes because she, like her sister, has actually met the king before, but unlike her sister, she actually paid attention to him.

MufaroSnakeKing

The pictures in the book are beautiful and colorful.  A note in the front of the book says that the buildings in the illustrations were based on an ancient city in Zimbabwe that is now ruins.  The note in the book also explains that the names of the characters in the story come from the Shona language.  The meanings of the names are clues to the characters’ natures.  Manyara means “ashamed”, and Nyasha means “mercy.”

The book is a Caldecott Honor Book.  It is currently available online through Internet Archive.

MufaroWedding
Posted on by TracyC

The Goggles

Goggles

The Goggles by Ezra Jack Keats, 1969.

Peter and his best friend, Archie, live in a big city (probably New York City), and they often play in empty lots between the apartment buildings.  One day, Peter and Archie are playing in a lot filled with old, discarded junk, when Peter finds a special prize: a pair of motorcycle goggles!

GogglesFinding

The boys have fun playing with the goggles, but then they’re spotted by a gang of bigger boys.  The bigger boys try to make Peter give them the goggles, one of them even knocking him to the ground when he attempts to take them.

GogglesBullies

Peter’s dog, Willie, runs off with the goggles, and the boys split up to get away from the bullies, meeting back at their “hideout” in the vacant lot.

GogglesRunning

However, the big boys are still looking for Willie and the goggles.  What can Peter and Archie do to get rid of them?

GogglesTrick
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Peter’s Chair

Peter’s Chair by Ezra Jack Keats, 1967.

There is a new baby in Peter’s family, his little sister, Susie, and things are changing for Peter.  He is no longer the baby of the family.  He must play quietly to avoid disturbing the baby, and his father is painting all of his old, blue baby furniture pink for little Susie.

Peter feels badly, seeing the baby getting all of his old things.  Spotting his old baby chair, which hasn’t been painted yet, Peter runs off with it, taking along some of his other old things.

However, what Peter eventually realizes is that he has grown too big to fit into his old chair.  Nobody stays a baby forever, and Peter’s old baby things are of no use to him anymore.

Seeing that he is out-growing these old baby things helps Peter to be willing to let go of them and help his father repaint them for his little sister.

This is a cute story about change and growing up and the worries that children sometimes have about their siblings taking their place in the family. The art style of the book is also interesting because it includes pieces of patterned or textured paper for things like wallpaper, people’s clothing, the newspapers under the furniture being painted, and the baby’s lacy blanket. Other books by the same author also use this technique, such as Jennie’s Hat.

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The Snowy Day

SnowyDay

The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, 1962.

This is a pleasant, slice-of-life story about the fun and wonder of a snowy day for young children.

A young boy named Peter wakes up on a winter morning to discover that it snowed during the night.

SnowyDayMorning

Peter hurries out into the snow, experiencing all of the fun it has to offer.  He studies the footprints that he makes in the snow and uses a stick to make marks in the snow and knock snow off of tree branches.  He’s still too little to join in the snowball fight that the big boys have, but he has fun making a snowman and snow angels.

SnowyDayAngels

The snow is so much fun that Peter makes a snowball amd put it in his pocket to save for later.  Of course, the snowball in his pocket doesn’t last, and he worries that the snow outside will disappear as well, but there is even more snow the next day.  He gets a friend of his to come outside and join him in the fun.

SnowyDaySnowball

It’s a simple, sweet story about one of the simple pleasures in life and one boy’s discovery of the wonders of snow. It would make a nice, calm bedtime story for young children.

SnowyDayFriend

This book is also a Caldecott award winner, and it is noted for being one of the first children’s books to feature a black main character.  Peter’s race is never mentioned in the text and is not directly a part of the story, but it is shown in the pictures.  Really, I think that’s part of what makes the book so great; although the book was considered ground-breaking for representing minorities, it does so in a way that’s completely relatable because his story could really happen to just about any child.

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The Valentine Mystery

The Valentine Mystery by Joan Lowery Nixon, 1979.

Someone leaves a mysterious, unsigned valentine for Susan Connally at her apartment on Valentine’s Day. Even though everyone was home at the time that the valentine was delivered, the only person who saw the person who brought it was Susan’s little, two-year-old brother, Barney.  All Barney can say about this person is that “He had watches on his tennis shoes.”

Susan and her other brother, Mike, decide to ask some of the other people who live in their apartment building if they know anything about the valentine or a strange person who wears watches on his shoes. 

Nobody knows a person who wears watches on their shoes.  Most people aren’t even wearing tennis shoes.  They’re wearing boots because it’s snowing outside. The questions the kids are asking about people with watches on their tennis shoes sound so strange that one of their neighbors, Mrs. Pickett, thinks that the kids are trying to find the solution to a riddle and keeps guessing things like “a spotted dinosaur who has time on his hands?”  (Mrs. Pickett is one of my favorite characters in this book. All of her solutions involve a spotted dinosaur, for some reason.)

There is a boy named Pete who lives in their apartment building.  His family has only moved there recently, and he’s in Susan’s class at school.  Susan thinks it would be nice if the valentine turned out to be from him, but he’s not wearing tennis shoes or watches.  He’s also wearing boots with round buckles on them.

The breakthrough comes when the kids discover that their little brother is going through a phase where he calls all kinds of shoes “tennis shoes.”

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

I read this book when I was a kid and then spent years trying to remember what book involved a kid who thought someone had watches on his tennis shoes before I found it again. It’s a cute, fun Valentine’s Day mystery story, and I love all of Mrs. Pickett’s guesses about who would wear watches on their tennis shoes.

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Arthur’s Valentine

Arthur’s Valentine by Marc Brown, 1980.

During the week before Valentine’s Day, someone keeps leaving unsigned valentines for Arthur.  He wonders who it is, thinking about the different girls in his class at school. On the other hand, maybe someone is just playing a joke on him.

When his friends find out about his secret admirer, Arthur gets a lot of teasing.  At one point, he thinks that he knows who the secret admirer is, but when he writes a valentine of his own for her, it turns out that he’s wrong, and it leads to more embarrassment.

However, Valentine’s Day isn’t over yet. Arthur’s secret admirer gives him a movie ticket, saying that she’ll meet him at the theater.  With this last message, Arthur realizes who is secret admirer is and arranges a surprise of his own.

This is just a fun, cute Valentine’s Day story, part of the Arthur Adventure Series.

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The Desert is Theirs

The Desert is Theirs by Byrd Baylor, illustrated by Peter Parnall, 1975.

The story in the book is written in a kind of poetical form, describing what life in the desert is like.  It talks about the kinds of animals that live in the desert and how the plants sometimes have to go without water for months because it doesn’t rain much.

It also describes the Desert People, the Papago Indians (Tohono O’odham – Which literally translates as “Desert People”).  Even though the desert is a harsh environment, the people who have lived there for generations think of it as home and like living there.

The book continues with a Native American creation myth that describes how the Earthmaker made a little plot of dirt and greasewood grew in it – the beginning of the desert.  Then, Coyote scattered seeds to grow cactus, and the Spider People sewed the earth and sky together.  In the creation story, other animals help to form the desert, which earns the respect of the Papago.  The Desert People recognize that they have to share the land with the animals as well as each other.

While the desert can be harsh, it isn’t barren.  In the desert, there are still plants to eat and use as medicine.  People also use grasses for weaving baskets and the soil itself for building homes.

People also learn patience in the desert.  It can take a long time for it rain.  Plants sometimes have to wait for years in order to bloom.  Animals wait for the coolness of night to come out.  People plant their crops very carefully.  But, even though they often have to wait, good things are worth waiting for.

I remember teachers reading this book to us in early elementary school because I grew up in Arizona.  It is a Caldecott Honor Book.

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Coconut Kind of Day

Coconut Kind of Day: Island Poems by Lynn Joseph, illustrated by Sandra Speidel, 1990.

The author’s note in the back of the book explains that the author was originally from Trinidad and that she wrote this book of poems about some of the things that remembers from growing up there.  She also explains some of the terms used in the poems that people who aren’t familiar with Trinidad might not know:

Palet man – Ice-cream man who sells ice cream on sticks, like popsicles (I knew this one because I’m used to the Spanish word “paletero” from growing up in Arizona.)

Soursop – A type of fruit often used as an ice cream flavor

Pullin’ seine – When the fishermen start pulling in their nets, and other people help.

Jumbi man – A bogey man.  It’s popular for people to dress in a Jumbi costume at Carnival time.

Sorrel – A plant used in making a drink around Christmas

The poems are mostly about small, everyday things, like going to school or to the market or how the children play together or get ice cream from the palet man.

There is one poem where the girls want to play cricket with the boys, but the boys won’t let them, and they decide that when they’re older, they’ll have a cricket team of their own.

The pictures are beautiful, done in an impressionistic style.

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Tortillas Para Mama

Tortillas Para Mama selected and translated by Margot C. Griego, Betsy L. Bucks, Sharon S. Gilbert, and Laurel H. Kimball, illustrated by Barbara Cooney, 1981.

This is a collection of Spanish lullabies and nursery rhymes in the Americas.  The introduction to the book explains how these traditional rhymes have been passed down through the generations of families.  They are not specific to any one country, more generally known where there are Spanish speakers. The rhymes are in both in English and Spanish.

Like children’s rhymes everywhere, they are about small, everyday things, like family, animals, cooking, and other things people do every day, like helping little kids to get dressed.

There are rhymes and songs that involve counting on fingers or making hand motions.

My favorite is the lullaby Los Pollitos (The Chicks), which I first heard when I was little through Kidsongs. I always liked that song.

The illustrations, paintings by Barbara Cooney, are beautiful.  Some people may recognize the art style from her other works like Miss Rumphius and Roxaboxen.

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The Story About Ping

The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack and Kurt Wiese, 1933.

Ping is a small duck who lives with his family on a boat on the Yangtze River in China.  Every morning, the master of the boat lets the ducks out to look for food on the river, and every evening, he calls them back. 

However, Ping hates it that the master gives the last duck to return at the end of the day a spank on the back, so when he realizes that he is late to return one day, he hides and is left behind.

After sleeping on the river bank overnight, Ping sets out to find his family the next day.  However, there are many different boats on the river, and he has trouble finding the one where his family lives.  As he searches, he is captured by a boy who brings him onto his family’s boat.

To Ping’s horror, the family who captured him plans to eat him for dinner!  However, the boy who grabbed Ping out of the water thinks that he’s “too beautiful to eat.”  Without letting his family know, the boy frees Ping from the basket where he is being held captive.

As Ping swims away from the boy’s boat, he hears the master of his family’s boat, calling out for the ducks to return.  This time, Ping does return to his family’s boat, even being willing to take a spank for being late, glad just to be safe with his family.

In a way, this little story reminds me of one of the short humor stories in Wayside School is Falling Down.  In that story, a boy at a very strange school gets tired of following the school’s rules.  Some mysterious men explain to the boy that the rules are meant to keep the students safe and choosing whether or not to follow the rules means choosing between freedom and safety.  The story and the boy’s choice are meant to be humorous, but it is a good point about the purpose of rules.  Probably, the reason why the master on Ping’s boat spanks the last duck is to give all of the ducks a reason to hurry back to the safety of the boat.  Ping doesn’t really appreciate that until he sees the dangers that wait for a small duck, alone on the river.  In the end, he is willing to accept some discipline because he wants the safety it promises.  It’s not the usual message in a lot of modern children’s books, especially in the United States, where people and book characters tend to value freedom over safety (the choice made by the boy in the Wayside School book).  However, in this book, Ping and his family have something between total freedom and total captivity – they are allowed to swim pretty freely during the day as long as they return to the boat for safety at night. They get both some freedom and safety in exchange for following the master’s routine. Ping’s danger only comes when he breaks away from that entirely.

But, if you think that analysis is getting too deep, Ping’s adventures and his return to the safety of his family are endearing for lovers of animal stories. Kids who encounter this story will be reassured that Ping is still able to return to home and safety after his adventures!

The story has appeared in film and on television more than once. The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).