Kende! Kende! Kende! (Child's Play Library) (English, French and Lingala Edition) - Softcover

Kirsten Cappy; Yaya Gentille

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1835320554 ISBN 13: 9781835320556

Publisher: Child's Play International, 2024

Synopsis

Lolie’s childhood in a village in Central Africa is filled with laughter and curiosity. She loves to Kende, Kende, Kende, or Go, Go, Go! But when fighting nears the village, Papá must load Lolie into a wheelbarrow and flee as fast as her pregnant Mamá can walk. Lolie distracts herself on the journey by observing how bicycles and trucks move and by helping baby Nico be born “right there on four wheels.” In their years in a refugee camp, Lolie’s responsibilities grow as does baby Nico’s ability to restore the family’s laughter. Resettled in the US, the family awakes to a blizzard and the realization that Mamá, again pregnant, must go to the hospital. The family makes another journey through the unknown, relying on new words and a community of Mamás to help them Kende, Kende, Kende. This story is fiction, but it is inspired by the real journeys of many families originating from Central Africa who were forced to leave their homes. In the authors’ imagining, Lolie and her family were from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and spent several years in the Rwamwanja Refugee Camp in Uganda. Despite these specific locations, this book could be about any of the millions of displaced people worldwide. Written in both French and English with action words in Lingala, the multi-language text is a literal embodiment of the way that people from Central Africa move through many languages to build community and to navigate migration. This is an honest but hopeful own-voice narrative about displacement, migration, and finding a new home.

About this title

About the Author

Authored by Kirsten Cappy, co-founder of I’m Your Neighbor Books, a US non-profit organisation that places Immigrant and New Generation children’s literature in homes, schools and libraries.

Edition details

• Publisher: Child's Play International
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1835320554
• ISBN 13: 9781835320556
• Binding: Paperback
• Illustrator: Rahana Dariah
• Number of pages: 36