How often do you make a list for
the grocery store and then leave the list at home and have to remember what you
wrote down? That is Fatima’s dilemma in Grandma’s List, a Children’s Africana
Book Award winner by Portia Dery, illustrated by Toby Newsome.
Calling Grandma’s List an excellent read-aloud book, Africa Access Review
says the illustrations “show a neighborhood in Ghana that is very typical of
many African towns with shops, gardens, small livestock, and many people
outside working and playing. Children not familiar with West Africa can learn
about palm nut soup, groundnuts (peanuts) and Bissap drink.”
Africa Access highlights the best
books about Africa especially during its February Read Africa initiative but throughout
the year as well.
Fatima has convinced her
grandmother she can help with the chores on Grandma’s list of errands – but she
loses the list and has to remember all the details, mixing up just about
everything. Contrary to expectations,
Fatima’s family is very forgiving and she concludes that being a child isn’t so
bad after all.
This is an excellent book for
children to study the illustrations:
·
How does the dinner table look the same as
yours? Different?
·
What about the village scene – what looks
familiar? Can you draw a picture of your neighborhood on a Saturday morning?
·
Have children write their own list of grocery
items or household tasks and imagine they lost the list. Ask them to write a
paragraph about how they could help themselves remember items without that
list.
·
Encourage children to consider the importance of
details. Find out about cornflour – the kind Fatima mistakenly purchased – and
write a paragraph about how it is used differently from wheat flour. Try to
find a Ghanaian recipe using cornflour (usually called cornstarch in the United
States).
·
Fatima doesn’t like her nickname “Fati.” Do you have a nickname you like – or don’t
like? Write about your nickname – or a nickname you would like to have.
There are more
classroom ideas in the Africa Access Review of Grandma’s List as well as recommended picture books (Anansi
Reads) and chapter books (Sankofa Reads), book marks and reviews of Children’s
Africana Book Award winners.
Children and teachers may add their
own comments about the books they read at http://africaaccessreview.org/ -
which becomes a student writing activity in itself. It is also possible for students to submit
videos or posters about the books they read, write a letter to the author or
illustrator and even request a visit from a Read Africa Teaching Artist.
The 2018 CABA awards will be
celebrated with a reception on April 5 and a family festival April 6 at the
Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C.
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