Samburu (Kenya)

Accelerated Reader is a program based on the fact that students become more motivated to read if they are tested on the content of the books they have read and are rewarded for correct answers. Students read each book, individually take the test on the computer, and receive gratification when they score well. Schools using the Accelerated Reader program have seen a significant increase in reading among their students.

Fifty-six newly released titles that provide a fascinating portrait of the many peoples that inhabit Africa. These books have natural curriculum tie-ins with multiculturalism, geography, and social studies.

Gr 5-8-Each of these books discusses in great detail the culture and the life styles of an indigenous group in Kenya, beginning with a brief overview of the people-their physical characteristics, dress, and so forth-before moving on to a more in-depth discussion of the geography of the area and the history, rituals, and daily life of the inhabitants. Photographs, both full color and black and white, are well chosen and help to illustrate or clarify the text. Samburu is the more clearly written of the two, although Gaertner has the harder job of describing a more unusual culture. There is very little information about either of these groups available for children elsewhere; there is only a rare mention of each in the Kenya volume of the Marshall Cavendish ``Cultures of the World'' series and none at all in the indexes of several encyclopedias. Libraries charged with providing support materials for a study of the indigenous people of Africa would do very well with these titles. More general or smaller collections will have to determine how many of the more than 50 proposed titles in this series they will want to acquire.-Linda Greengrass, Bank Street College Library, New York City

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