When Africa Was Home (Orchard Paperbacks)

by Karen Lynn Williams and Karen L. Williams

Book Overview

The small white child in this picture book feels alien when his family returns to America. He can't wait to go back to the warm African village where he ran free with his friends under a wide sky. . .... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0531070433
• ISBN13: 9780531070437
• Release Date: March 1994
• Publisher: Scholastic
• Length: 32 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.3" x 0.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Wonderful

I was given this book as a graduation present when I left Malawi, the setting of the book, to come to university in America. I adore this book. The illustrations are incredibly beautiful pastels. The colors are fantastic and the people have wonderfully expressive faces. The story is sweet. I can identify with the main character because of my upbringing as a white child in Southern Africa. However, I think that the experience of moving away from home and being homesick is a universal one. For any child, being taken from a familiar to a strange situation is difficult. The only drawback the story might have in that sense is that the main character is able to return to Malawi at the end of the story. While that is hopeful, there are children who will not be able to return to their former homes or lives. For those children, this could be a hard book. There are several examples of Chichewa, the national language of Malawi, in the book. All of the words are used accurately. The Chichewa words are not difficult for a parent or teacher reading the book as all of the words are pronounced phonetically.

When Africa Was Home

My parents gave me this book for Christmas a few years ago, and, although I am a grown man, and I left Africa 15 years ago now, this book makes me cry, and want to return home. Like Peter, I'm a white African, although I'm a Kenyan. I miss Kenya, and even if I never get a chance to return, it will always be Home.This book is a great gift for "third culture" kids, as well as for those trying to understand what it's like for kids to leave home and move far away.

The most wonderful children's book about Africa I have found

My daughter and I were simply delighted with this book, and we are voracious readers of tales from foreign lands. For the protagonist, a little American boy born in Africa, Africa is not another place, a foreign country, but the home that he knows and loves, described poignantly through the eyes of a child. It is the USA that is foreign and strange to him, although he acclimates with a sort of resigned acceptance. I won't spoil it by telling the end; I can only say that I hope you and your children enjoy it as much as we did.