Masai and I - Hardcover

Kroll, Virginia

4.1

129 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0027511650 ISBN 13: 9780027511659

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, 1992

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

In an imaginative tale designed to introduce young readers to African culture, a young girl learns about East Africa and the Masai people and begins to wonder what her life would be like if she were Masai. BOMC.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:

Virginia Kroll began writing shortly after the birth of her fourth child. She is now the author of numerous books for children, including The Seasons and Someone, Butterfly Boy, and Masai and I.

From Publishers Weekly:

A young African American girl muses, "if I were a Masai," and compares her own life with what she has learned in school about East Africa and its inhabitants. She considers where a Masai girl would sleep, how she occupies her time, what kinds of animals she would see. The artwork, realistic and warm, portrays a joyful girl who feels "the tingle of kinship" with the Masai culture; her counterpart's spare environs, replete with exotic flora and fauna, are likewise strikingly depicted. The book's creative design--a Western scene on one page of each spread faces a typical Masai scene on the other--seamlessly blends corroborative colors and details: a yellow carpet becomes the dry savanna grass, the girl's bedsheet turns into a cowhide covering. (The final spread, however, may prove confusing: two characters are shown in Masai dress at an otherwise typical Western Thanksgiving dinner.) Kroll's beguiling language--"whole flocks of flashing fireflies turned trees into lanterns"--offers resonant images; the last paragraph, in particular, rings proud and positive: "I come home and stare at my reflection in my bedroom mirror . . . smooth brown skin over high cheekbones and black eyes that slant up a little when I smile. I like what I see." Ages 4-7.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.