Images of Africa

Handa's surpise coverIt was a pleasant surprise to open my daughter’s book bag with her at bedtime last night and discover one of the delightful “Handa” series by Eileen Brown. We all love “Handa’s surprise”, where Handa carries a bowl of various fruits on her head to her friend Akeyo in the next village and is in for as much of a surprise as her friend by the time she gets there. A gift for teachers as an opportunity to bring in the five-a-day campaign! The pictures are vibrant, the concept is great and most of all, the children are all smiling!

It’s set in south west Kenya and this positive image of African life is so refreshing. Our children’s images of African children are mainly drawn from Comic Relief clips or news reports of war, famine and disease. I know these are all necessary, but what a distorted view we would all have if this was all we ever saw of African life. “Handa’s Hen”, the latest to come home from school, is about a hen that goes AWOL and the variety of different animals Handa and Akeyo find in their quest to locate the hen. A gift for teachers as an opportunity to bring in numeracy skills(!), but also beautifully illustrated and great fun to read.

Handa's hen coverThere should be more children’s books like this around. They definitely have an influence. When the vicar went into Nursery to show the children photos of his trip to Malawi, my little one came running out excitedly to tell me that the vicar had been to see Handa!! When I was a childminder, I remember that we had to have a range of multicultural books at home and how difficult it was to find any. Hopefully, that has changed, although the other book in the book bag was an OXFAM book called “Come home with us!” which was OK but a bit dated (published in 1995 and looked it somehow).

I know that there are a great range of positive images from Africa on greetings cards and calendars. I want my family to grow up seeing other children from around the world as people with interesting lives, fascinating traditions and fun, friends and family. Then any action or decisions they take in the future may be from a desire for equality rather than out of pity.

Leave a Reply