Carol Beyanga sings praises of reading...

In the Kampala, Uganda Daily Monitor newspaper of last week...

... Every year, I pick my now stained and weathered copy of To Kill a Mockingbird and sit down to get into Scout's world again. I laugh at her naughtiness and marvel at her brilliance. I am impressed by Atticus' integrity and heartened by Jem's love for his sister. Most of all though, I am swept away by Harper Lee's skill and the issues she was writing about, notably racism. She weaved that story so well. I wonder if she knew at the time she wrote it, how much fame it would earn her.

Then there is the African novel. Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Ngugi wa Thiongo, Austin Bukenya, Maria K. Okurut and Chimananda Adichie come to mind. My favourite is Things fall Apart. I know, you must be thinking that I have not had a variety from which to choose.

But I have. And Achebe's novel stands out. I think it was the simplicity with which he wrote and the character of Okonkwo that drew me to that book. Sometimes I hated Okonkwo, but most times, I actually liked him and felt sorry for a man who was facing changing times and would not budge.

Read more here...

"Say you're one of them" by Uwem Akpan

A short story in a collection of the same name that appeared this year... I won't say anything about the plot except that it is set in Rwanda in the 1994 genocide. You won't read it and think "There but for the grace of God...", you'll think, "I was God, then, and my goodness failed."

Burt Award to encourage more African literature

The Burt Award for African Literature, made possible through CODE by the generous $1M contribution of Torontonian philanthropist Bill Burt, consists of three annual cash prizes worth $21,000 and publishing contracts for winning submissions.

In the award’s inaugural year the competition will be held in Tanzania, and will be co-managed by CODE and its UNESCO award-winning Tanzanian partner, the Children’s Book Project. In future years the award will expand across Africa, on a country by country basis.

"I speak for all Tanzanians when I say that this is a truly valuable contribution to education in our country," says Tanzanian High Commissioner Peter Kallaghe.

Read more here...

Florida is reading Naguib Mahfouz's The Thief and the Dogs

Unbeknownst to me... here's the link to the Big Read Egypt/U.S. I just finished the book and was looking for an image for the blog. What a great choice. It's an interesting novella, certainly for 1961 it must have been remarkable... a stream of consciousness attempt to get inside the mind of Said Mahran, a thief turned murderer.... a shade of Dostoevsky, perhaps? Not as clear, but still really interesting.

Le nez dans les livres

Interesting reading promotion strategy.

Comment motiver les élèves à la lecture ? La Bataille des livres et un premier prix de lecture à la Foire du livre de Bruxelles.

"Avant, je ne lisais jamais. Depuis la Bataille des livres, j'adore lire. J'ai lu pour le concours ‘La petite poule qui voulait la mer’. À Bruxelles, à la Foire du livre, on vendait la série de ces histoires. J'ai acheté trois livres avec mon argent de poche." Le témoignage de Thomas compte parmi d'autres dans un quotidien. Celui-ci réserve une pleine page à l'aventure vécue par les élèves de 3e et 4e années primaires et à leur consécration le 1er mars, à la Foire du livre dans le cadre d'une rencontre intercontinentale qui a mis en compétition les participants de huit pays via Internet.
Read more...

Bande Dessinées

I've never been a big BD reader, but at the Martin Luther King, Jr. library (San Jose's main library) I picked up a copy of Godard-Ribera's Le Grand Scandale: San Francisco. It was pretty good. Nice illustrations, some humor. Took about an hour to read. Meanwhile, Elliot read five Yu-gi-oh illustrated comic books (graphic novelties, he called them) in a single evening. So I have some friendly reading competition.

News from Uganda libraries

Kate Parry writes:

I talked to Dan at Kitengesa [the librarian] a couple of days ago. The roof of our new building is now nearly finished, and our new reading program "20 Challenge" is under way. Library members can sign up for the Challenge at the beginning of a month, and if they read twenty books by the end of it, they get a certificate and a small prize (a volunteer at a nearby project has given us a bunch of pens which we can use for prizes; I also bought a set of them). Since the Challenge readers must talk about every book they read with one of the librarians, Dan and Lucy have decided to keep the number of participants down to twenty in any one month; then the next month another twenty get a
chance.

Regarding the prize received by one of our UgCLA members, Francis Kigobe, that you mentioned yesterday.... he was awarded a prize by the national newspaper, New Vision, as someone who had made a difference for his community. He did so by setting up a community library and working hard for years to get people to use it. I discovered a couple of days ago that I myself had had a hand in his getting this prize: the competition was set up with the help of a friend of mine whose husband was then working for New Vision, and she remembered me speaking of Francis and the splendid work he'd done. The newspaper articles about him can be read at these links:

http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/9/657/637312
http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/9/657/632344

He won two million shillings -- about $1250!

Finally, an article that I wrote about two years ago about the Kitengesa library is at last being published in the Teachers College Record. Its title is "The Story of a Library: Research and Development in an African Village," and it can be read online at
http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentId=15385.
I'm afraid you have to pay for the article, but the abstract, at least, can be read for free.

Kate Parry forward... library founder award in Uganda (sorry a little late in posting!)

Ceazaria is in the Uganda Community Library Association... networking small library social entrepreneurs is one of FAVL's important missions

Dear Colleagues,
A story that probably missed your eyes in yesterday's New Vision Monday June 9, 2008 on page 24. It was reported that Mr. Francis Kigobe who founded Ceazaria Public Library in Mukono was chosen as 1st prize winner of Shs 2 million in the "Ugandans making a difference" project an initiative of the New Vision which recognises Ugandans who are having a positive impact in their communities through sheer selfless. The New Vision reported that, "He was nominated for building a library for his community of Malongwe in Mukono district. After working at Kakira Sugar Works for four years, he used his savings to put up the Caezaria Public Library. He wanted to give the people in his community a chance to make it further in their education by having access to textbooks, something he lacked when he was at school."

I have interracted with Mr. Kigobe over the years and my conclusion has been that he's an extra-ordinary man! Mr. Kigobe's library was the focus centre for upcountry activities last year. I wish to thank his partners who have included National Library of Uganda, NABOTU, ULIA, Uganda Community Libraries Asociation and others who have supported Mr. Kigobe's ideas over the years.
Charles

Charles Batambuze
Executive Secretary
National Book Trust of Uganda (NABOTU)
Fountain House
3rd Floor, Suite 13 and 14
Plot 55, Nkrumah Road
P O Box 25412, Kampala
Tel. 041-235264
www.nabotu.or.ug

"If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door", unknown

Nice profile of Tanzania's Children's Book Project

Managing foreign exchange in library projects

So how can a small NGO operating in Africa easily insure itself against foreign exchange volatility? Guess we could just immediately divide every donation into dollars and euros of euros now? The first chart is the last year of the dollar against the CFA of French West Africa, the second is the longer term decline of the dollar against the Ugandan shilling, and the last the dollar against the Ghanaian cedi (dollar appreciation).

Profiled in widely read Burkinabe newspaper

FAVL was profiled in L'Observateur Paalga, always one of my favorite reads in Burkina Faso...

Quand l’Américain ouvre son cœur …

Pour favoriser l’apprentissage par la lecture au Burkina, une organisation américaine (FAVL) est en train de semer sa graine dans la boucle du Mouhoun. Grâce à elle, les enfants des villages de Béréba, Dohoun, Karaba, Koumbia et Sara disposent de bibliothèques dans lesquelles ils ont accès à des manuels de base. To read complete article...

African children's books links

South African Children's Book Forum

Children's Literature Research Unitat the University of South Africa

The Noma Award for Publishing in Africa

This last link to the Noma Award is especially relevant to my earlier posting about the Japanese movie Always Sunset -2. So there is an award... I stand corrected! And the 2007 winner sounds great.

Reading is hearing?

A fascinating summary from the Am. Psychological Association of some recent reading research in terms of the brain...

Reading research has made significant progress over the past 30 years, accelerating in the last few years as researchers who do intervention collaborate with brain-imaging researchers. Many studies over the last three decades have confirmed that reading has more to do with mentally “hearing” letter sounds and words than with seeing them, thus making it clear that children with reading problems are not lazy or unintelligent. Instead, they have specific brain-based differences in how they process information.

By using brain images to study reading, psychologists and their colleagues in medicine and education have found a biological explanation for the 2004 finding that research-based teaching can significantly improve how students with dyslexia read and spell. And in another 2004 study, they found evidence that effective instruction normalizes brain function.

The 2005 study showed that children who might otherwise have trouble learning to read can be identified and taught before their reading problems are apparent. When taught, their brains will change in as little as a year. This news is encouraging: Most kids who are at risk for reading problems can still learn to read.

More is available here. My own curiosity lies not in how the brains of readers experiencing difficulties reading are different from "normal" readers, but rather how the experience of sustained reading itself, a novel every month, might change the brain's ability to process information. Does it?

It ain't easy...

In my continuing series of efforts to reorient tech-happy tercermondialistas to "give books a chance..."

Why not make an solar-powered LED projector powered that can project microfilm literacy lessons on the wall and then literacy instructors can teach at night in villages without electricity? Why not! Seems doable, with enough MIT brainpower etc. So Design that Matters is doing it, (project name: Kinkajou). They have a $500,000 grant from USAID to field test the apparatus in 45 literacy centers in Mali. Looks cool and great. The one comment from their field visit that caught my eye was that several of the literacy instructors had apparently never bothered to take the solar panels out of the box... Hey, it's schadenfreude all the way down, baby.

Another aside... when I spent an enjoyable week in the Sudan Archives at Durham, I came across an archived box of glass "lantern slides" in beautiful color. So what's deeply curious and slightly delicious about kinkajou is that

(1) the instructors and students in Mali are all using kerosene lanterns to read their adult literacy books and notebooks (Aside. A guess: each person in the adult literacy class probably has one book? And just one book?)
(2) a technology (the so-called magic lantern and see here for how to build) has been around for 400 years to use a kerosene lamp to project images on a wall
(3) and nobody in the village has ever used that
(4) but they're jumping straight to LEDs and solar panels.

I wonder whether USAID would fund a project that proposed to create a set of 100 glass slides of literacy lessons and 45 kerosene-burning magic lanterns, with a project cost of maybe $1,000. They'd say it was too dangerous. PS: A lantern that you can make at home.

What is Africa really like?

Blattman introduces reader to Easterly's new paper about Africa. Another one? Easterly seems to be becoming like those mystery novelists who after awhile start their own imprint and have apprentice writers churn out a new variation every six months. Hey, just because I'm a library do-gooder doesn't mean I can't be take a cheap shot, even though I totally, I mean TOTALLY agree with Easterly, on like, EVERYTHING! ;-) (Oh, except Darfur.)

Anyway, the stereotype of "Child soldiers killing starving HIV/AIDS patients" is raised... Just so happens I'd just earlier read an interesting blog from a pediatrician living in Jos Nigeria. His profile of Joshua Gidado, a Nigerian community soccer coach, gives a real person a chance to stand in for the stereotype. You have to click through the link below to see what I mean:

I talked to him [Joshua] about the soccer match his team had been planning, down to the southeast of Nigeria, and he said it had been canceled because of the risk of kidnapping and other violence in that strife-torn area... more on Joshua's birthday

(The pediatrician's an evangelical Christian who's been in Nigeria for decades, apparently, so expect some interesting posts about abortion etc. too.) My son just finished a soccer game this morning... and that's where the empathy comes in. I love my son's coach, a quiet cheerful and supportive coach (go Ness!). And the thought of Joshua Gidado coaching his team in Nigeria just sends a shiver up my spine.

And libraries? Joshua apparently is self-educated.

Reading Across the Continents...

A program sponsored by the International Reading Association, puts students in Washington DC in contact with students in Nigeria and Ghana, reading common books and discussing. I don't want to toot my own horn, but Catherine Montfort and I did a project like this for two years with students in Burkina Faso and Santa Clara University. The logistics back then, in the early days of the Internet, were cumbersome. Just setting up a Yahoogroups was a job and a half! Things are definitely easier now... and cybercafes are plentiful in Africa. I'll be curous to see how the obviously well-funded attempt fares. They are reading Copper Sun and Purple Hibiscus

Another picture from the summer reading camps...

FAVL representative in Ouagadougou... got married!

It's congratulations for Viviane, who was married a couple of weeks ago. I got the photos yesterday. Here is Viviane with Dounko and Donkoui, our regional coordinators. And with her husband Noufo, of course!

Help by sending books or money?

A friend asked if we would like a donation of gently used children's books. Here's my reply,

We love books, but shipping is very expensive, so we prefer carefully selected books (multicultural themes, animal tales, etc....) Imagine you've grown up in a village with no electricity, escalators or energy bars... will the book make sense?

We especially appreciate book donations if you can box and send them yourself. We can send you a letter of tax deductibility after they are received in Ghana, Tanzania, or Uganda (for English books) or Burkina (for French books). Drop us an email and we can get you the relevant address and shipping information. M-Bag is the cheapest, but the Post Office eliminated the surface M-bag, so now they go by air, and two medium sized boxes of books in one M-bag, maybe 50 lbs., costs about $130. If you can make a small donation towards the postage (about $40 for a typical box).

An alternative is to ship your books to the warehouse of African Library Project or Books for Africa or Sudan-American Education Foundation; they repackage and send in containers.

Since you are a friend I'll be totally candid: usually if you itemize on taxes you can donate the books to Goodwill or your local public library, and itemize the donation as a charitable contribution. I don't know what the correct value is for used books (some tax softwares come with these valuations) but suppose you have 50 books x $4 a book=$200, and at marginal tax rate of 30% you get a $65 reduction in taxes, and then donate that $65 to FAVL, and you get to deduct the donation, so if you itemize that donation you get another a $20 reduction, so really you could donate $80 to FAVL from dropping your books off at the neighborhood thrift shop! Seems like a win-win to me.

Why did I suddenly remember this?

Always Sunset - 2, a lovely if traditional Japanese move set in the late 1950s, that I saw on the plane back from Burkina Faso.

Spring, 1959… four months after the events of the first film. The Olympics in Tokyo has officially been announced, and Japan is about to take its first step into a period of high economic growth. Chagawa has been living with Junnosuke but is still unable to forget Hiromi, the love of his life who had left Third Street without a word. One day, Kawabuchi returns to take Junnosuke away. Chagawa is given permission to take care of Junnosuke on the condition that the child enjoys an ordinary standard of living. To prove himself to Kawabuchi and to show Hiromi that he has become a better man, Chagawa begins to write a literary piece to win the Akutagawa Prize, a dream that he had given up long ago.

Isn't that weird? One of the main characters in this ordinary working class neighborhood wants to win the Akutagawa Prize, and everybody knows what the prize is and wants him to win (they help him etc.). This is 40 years ago when Japan was very poor, though obviously wealthy compared with much of present day Africa. But hard to imagine any ordinary person in Lagos, Nairobi or any urban center in Africa knowing or caring about a literary prize. And even more bizarre, his story (of course he wins, what, did I spoil it for you?) sounds like the most trite, ordinary story (well, on the basis of them reading aloud the final closing line... and admittedly I'm going by the subtitles ;-). Why, even the most ordinary writer in Central African Republic could write a story like that! So we need a major donor to come up with prize money and publicity please!

What is going on at FAVL lately?

We're having an informational board meeting this Saturday, so I thought I may as well start a post that I'll edit as the week goes on.

• Our summer reading programs in Burkina Faso were by all accounts (a number of visitors, and staff on the ground reported so). We'll soon start evaluating the programs (through a second reading tes tin October, and collection of impressions for local schoolteachers, etc. The team in Burkina will finish our initial draft manual for how to run a summer reading camp. We distributed several hundred books to the 4th graders who were randomly selected to read books. The discussion groups (one third of the 4th graders) enabled us to stock each library with 25 high quality children's books.
• Andrew Martric and friend Lola (NYC residents and Andrew a student at Pratt) spent time in Chalula library in Mvumi, Tanzania, and helped the librarians and local committee improve library functionality. They wrote up a great plan for prioritizing future library work. FAVL director Kate Parry also visited the library. So Chalula got the "friends" treatment" that exemplifies what FAVL is about- a network of like-minded people willing to spend time (and money) helping with the daily realities of running a community library in an African village, not as an abstract or distant involvement, but as a real person-to-person gritty reality.
• FAVL director Kate Parry spent a lot of time networking in Vancouver, New York, Uganda, and Tanzania. She's shepherding Uganda Community libraries Association through it's early start-up phase.
• Ghana CESRUD-FAVL coordinator Lucas Aligire has made two visits to Jordan Nu library, and Peace Corps volunteer Meghan Coughlin has worked closely with FAVL to help establish a library in Niankorodougou, Burkina Faso. These are our early or likely models for what we are calling "FAVL supported libraries", where FAVL does not directly manage the libraries. So far the model seems to be working reasonably well. FAVl offers "boots on the ground" in the form of a coordinator who can occasionally visit the library, expert advice derived from almost a decade of experience, a tax-deductible and accountable way to encourage donations, and some visibility (ahem, that's you, dear blog reader).
• Photographer David Pace is returning from his third trip to Burkina Faso, and we are looking forward to collaborating with him on a Fall 2009 immersion experience in Burkina, where students would take courses on Francophone literature and French language, and also on photography and "book design", followed by a two month immersion in villages with FAVL libraries, where the students would volunteer but more importantly produce a couple of books for use in the local libraries. Montana State University student Chelsea Rangel piloted this kind of immersion very successfully in Spring 2007, resulting in three books that have now been distributed to the libraries.

There's more, but I'll save that for tomorrow!

Thanks for the donations, by the way! Happy end of world literacy day

[In French] Here's a nice interview from Africultures with Léonora Miano, whose new book, Afropean Soul et autres nouvelles, just appeared Flammarion, coll. "Étonnants Classiques", 2008.

Question: Une opposition symbolique forte entre ombre et lumière parcourt votre trilogie romanesque composée de L'Intérieur de la nuit, Les Aubes écarlates et Contours du jour qui vient, ainsi que votre dernier roman, Tels des astres éteints : quelles sont selon vous les ombres qui menacent l'humanité aujourd'hui ? Où trouver de quoi vaincre les ténèbres ?

L'ombre qui nous menace et qui se décline sous diverses formes est notre incapacité à considérer l'humanité comme une et indivisible. Nous refusons de nous reconnaître les uns dans les autres. D'où les nationalismes, le terrorisme, les fondamentalismes, tous ces processus fascisants que nous ne cessons de légitimer. Je n'ai pas la réponse, pour vaincre les ténèbres. Ce dont je suis certaine, c'est que le Mal n'existe que pour être combattu. Refuser de se soumettre peut être un bon début.

Not Africa, but a reminder of the past

Hard to believe that this is the way things were... From Wikipedia:

On September 14, 2007, The United States Postal Service honored the 60th anniversary ruling of Mendez v. Westminster with a 41-cent commemorative stamp. On November 15, 2007, the United States Postal Service presented the Mendez v. Westminster stamp to the Mendez family at a press conference at the Rose Center Theater in Westminster, California.

Mendez v. Westminster School District, 64 F.Supp. 544 (C.D. Cal. 1946), aff'd, 161 F.2d 774 (9th Cir. 1947) (en banc), was a 1947 federal court case that challenged racial segregation in Orange County, California schools.

The Ninth Circuit ruled only on the narrow grounds that, although California law provided for segregation of students, it only did so for "children of Chinese, Japanese or Mongolian parentage". And because "California law does not include the segregation of school children because of their Mexican blood," therefore it was unlawful to segregate the Mexican children.

Presumably, a similar lawsuit filed by "Chinese, Japanese or Mongolian" children in segregated schools would have had the opposite result. This was remedied in California later that same year, on June 14, 1947, when California Governor Earl Warren signed a law repealing the remaining school segregation statutes in the California Education Code.

Follow-up on literacy and HIV/AIDS

Earlier I reproduced mystery novelist Henning Mankell's comment about how important literacy is for stemming the tide of HIV/AIDS. In case you thought anti-retrovirals were taking care of that problem... in case you thought it was an invisible problem, read pediatric nurse SDG's posting about Sammy K.

Ready to read and review?

Did you get your African novel for World Literacy Day like I asked you? Did you make your donation? If yes, you're ready to rock with your book review contribution.... But, where to put the damn review? How about the excellent compilation by tupakamoja... available here.

International Literacy Day is coming up....

It is September 8.
To celebrate, why not read an African novel that you check out from your local public library (you do have a card, don't you?) and make a small donation to FAVL?

Say it louder, baby!

Swedish mystery novelist Henning Mankell is a fierce African-oriented anti-illiteracy activist (AOAILLA), OMG just like me!

Let me now talk about illiteracy. It is a disgrace for the whole world that we in the year 2008 have yet to eradicate illiteracy on our planet. Still millions of children are forced to enter life without knowing how to read and write. The fact that we deny so many children these elementary tools means that we render them defenseless on so many issues related to AIDS. How can we expect a young person who lacks the ability to understand written information, who is unable to grasp the essence of vital knowledge, to protect her- or himself from becoming infected? Of course people talk, of course there is radio. There are also theatrical groups who travel the country to inform people. But the fact remains that we live in a world where the ability to read is necessary to acquire information.

Read more ...

A friend recommends...

The excellent graphic novel Aya from Ivory Coast. Here's an interview from Bookslut (?) with the author, Marguerite Abouet.

Holly's blog from Luboto library in Zambia

The Luboto library is part of Fountains fo Hope, an organization that helps street kids. Holly has been volunteering at the library as a Consulting Librarian under the Nasser Sharify Fellow for International Librarianship program. She is studying at Pratt Institute's School of Information and Library Science, and working as a librarian trainee at Brooklyn Public Library. The blog is excellent, featuring Holly's recollections of conversations with readers and youth who come to the library as a respite from the streets.

A FAVL friend writes...

I came across information suggesting the Howard University library in D.C. has some expertise in the area of French-language literature related to Africa. So I contacted them asking for information about relevant books that my son might try to find for his library project. I heard back from Mr. Mohamed Mekkawi, Director of Libraries for Howard University. I’ve pasted below the relevant information he sent me. Your organization may be familiar with these resources and with Mr. Mekkawi, but if any of it is new information and useful to FAVL, that would be gratifying.

Lisons tous, Vol 1. http://www.afrilivres.com/spip.php?article197

Lison tous, Vol 2. http://www.afrilivres.com/spip.php?article160

You'll also find a whole list of African French language books with illustrations--good material for beginners in this language. http://www.afrilivres..com/spip.php?mot1047

I also suggest browsing my website "French Connection" for additional materials, esp under the rubric "Franchphonie": http://www.howard.edu/library/Assist/Guides/FrenchConnection..htm#FRANCOPHONY

Mekkawi, Mohamed, M.A.

Director of Libraries, Howard University

Why not search "fairytale novel nigeria"?

An interesting Nigerian-American author pops up!

Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu was born in the United States to two Igbo (Nigerian) immigrant parents. She holds a PhD in English and is a professor at Chicago State University. ....

Her first novel, Zahrah the Windseeker (published in 2005 by Houghton Mifflin and an illustrated version was published in Nigeria in 2008 by Kachifo Ltd.), takes place in a highly technological world based on Nigerian myths and culture.

Zahrah the Windseeker was shortlisted for the Parallax Award and Kindred Award in 2006, a finalist for the 2005 Golden Duck and GardenState Teen Choice awards and nominated for a Locus Award (Best First Novel) 2005.

Her second novel, The Shadow Speaker (Hyperion Books, 2007) has characters from and takes place in the countries of Niger and Nigeria. The Shadow Speaker was a Booksense Pick for Winter 2007/08 and a finalist for the Essence Magazine Literary Award and the Andre Norton Award. It is also an NAACP Image Award nominee, a Tiptree Honor Book and a Locus Magazine Recommended Book. Nnedi is the winner of the 2007/08 Macmillan Writer's Prize for Africa. Her winning unpublished children's book, Long Juju Man, a story about a girl's encounters with an irritating crafty ghost, will be published by Macmillan UK in 2008.

Read more at her website