Thursday, June 7, 2012

Chirchir is Singing – Kelly Cunnane

Illustrated by Jude Daly
Schwartz & Wade Books, 2011
HC $17.99
32 pages
Rating:  4.5
Endpapers:  Brown earth with a few floating musical notes
Title Page:  her family, walking across the page.  Full color.
Illustrations:  cover most of page, in acrylics.  Sparse yet detailed.  Give a real feel for the setting.

Setting:  Contemporary northwestern Kenya, Kalenjin tribe
OSS:  Young Chirchir wants to help her family with the chores, but is a little too young to be able to actually help.

We meet Chirchir’s family as they are working.  Mama, who is drawing water from the well; Kogo, her grandmother, tending fire to cook chai; Ji-Bet, her sister, spreading a fresh layer of cow dung and ashes on the floor of the kitchen hut; Baba, her father, digging potatoes in the hill garden.  She sings everywhere she goes.  And so she sings to her baby brother, which keeps him entertained , as her voice travels to the rest of her family and keeps them happy, too.

Great language…simile and metaphor, with info in the back about this culture and a glossary and pronounciationguide for the Swahili words used.

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