Children & Youth Literature

    What are the features of a Good Book about Africa? See this student critical thinking activity and handout that provides key criteria for excellence (a discussion guide that can be used and adapted from K-12 grade).
    Enhancing Children’s Literature Through African Voices

    This is an interactive map for educators to support second grade students’ engagement with African literature in an accurate and innovative manner. The map markers invite students to access read-alouds from various countries as well as people’s commentary on the books from their perspectives as nationals of various countries.
      Africa Access

      Africa Access is a 501 c (3) organization that was founded in 1989 to help schools, public libraries, and parents improve the quality of their K-12 literary collections on Africa. Africa Access is the go-to resource for looking up African children’s literature by country, grade-level, theme and accessing book reviews.
        On-Campus: Teaching Africa Library

        We encourage Boston-area teachers to access the African Studies Center K-16 Education Outreach Teaching Africa Library, which is housed on Boston University’s campus. The Teaching Africa Library is an extensive collection of materials useful for teaching about Africa for all grade levels. Our collection contains adult and children’s books, both fiction and nonfiction, as well as movies, curriculum guides, clothing, and travel kits.
            Children’s Africana Book Awards (CABA)

            The Children’s Africana Book Awards (CABA) annually showcases authors and illustrators of the best children’s and young adult books on Africa published or republished in the U.S. Africa Access and the Outreach Council of the African Studies Association (ASA) created CABA in 1991 to encourage the publication and use of accurate, balanced children’s materials about Africa.
              Recommended Picture Books on Africa 

              A list of recommended children’s picture books to teach children about Africa. The list was curated by the K-16 Outreach Education program and is designated for grades PreK-5th grade.

              Poems

              Rain Poems 

              A list of poems about rain from various locations compiled by Barbara Brown, Ph. D.

               

              Read Alouds & Audio Excerpts

              • Sankofa Read-Alouds 
                This youtube Channel features hundreds of African and African American children’s picture books, read-aloud in their entirety. For teachers seeking to provide e-books to students who may not have access to libraries or may not be able to buy them, this is a most excellent resource to promote engagement with African and African American literature.
              • Audiobook Excerpts: The Caine Prize in African Literature has a Soundcloud, with over 40 tracks of read excerpts from winners and shortlisted books.