Picture books

Ever since I was born and could see, 
Everywhere I looked, I saw dance.
In the clouds as the wind blew them across the sky,
In the ripples on a pond,
Even in the sea of ants marching up and down their hills.
Dance was all around me. Dance was me.

Today I want to share two really lovely children's books with you. In my corner of the world it is very difficult to find picture books about black children. Can you imagine how happy I was when I found Dancing in the Wings! Not only is the girl in the book black and a ballet dancer, she is also very tall. My daughter was a tiny little baby when she was born, but now - at the age of nine - she wears clothes for a 16-year-old. The author must have had her in mind when she wrote this book!

The pictures by Kadir Nelson are just great. I love his work and I love this book.

 

The second book is about Mandela, written ànd illustrated by Kadir Nelson.

 

I have been looking for a children's book about Nelson Mandela for ages. Of course we told the kids about Mandela being the first black president of South Africa and his importance for the country where they were born.

 

But somehow I just couldn't tell them about apartheid. I mean how do you tell a child about racism? They grow up in a country where 45% of the population has a foreign passport, in a very diverse community that consists of +/- 60 different nationalities...they just wouldn't have understood. 
However when Mandela became ill and the kids told me they spoke about him with their teacher and classmates, I knew the time has come to start talking about that difficult subject. Kadir Nelson's beautiful book will be of such great help.

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Downton Abbey and Laura Ingalls-Wilder

The postman made me very happy today. 

My long awaited parcel from

the Netherlands finally arrived. 

Downton Abbey, Season 3 ~ part 1 and 2.

 I promised myself not to watch them until the weekend 

 (but it is not going to be easy to hold that promise). 

  

~

 

I remember reading some of the Little House 

books when I was in 3rd grade and I have just 

started to read them to my daughter, 

who is also in 3rd grade now. 

 The problem is that some of the German

 translations are very hard to find

 (and therefore very expensive). 

That's why I decided to buy the 

whole series in English, just for me.

I am really looking forward to reading Laura's

books from an adult's point of view.

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The boy who harnassed the wind

I finished reading this beautiful book ("The boy who harnassed the wind") - a birthday gift from my father - last night.
It tells the incredible story of a young Malawian boy who changes his little corner of the world by building an electric windmill out of junk.

It is full of hope and love and courage...
If you like reading about Africa, you'll love this book.

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Mamma Moo

Searching Amazon for a book for my youngest son's birthday, I came upon the wonderful series of Mama Muh. The books are illustrated by Sven Nordqvist, who is the creator of Findus and Pettson. Mama Muh is a big hit at our house now. I think it is the funniest book we ever read together and we ordered three more titles. I found only one title in English "Mamma Moo goes down a slide". This is a book we will keep and read to our grandchildren someday!

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On our bookshelf

This is one of the cutest children's books we have ever read about Africa. We read it in Dutch, but in English it is called "Handa's hen". It is written for younger children, but my kids (almost 7 and 8) still love it. Because the first copy of the book was torn into pieces, I bought a new copy (you know.....for my grandchildren). It is a beautiful book for adopted African children.

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On my bookshelf

This is my favorite children's bible ("Children of God Storybook Bible"), written by South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He is such an inspirational man (and he is also very funny!).

I love this bible so much because of the wonderful illustrations. Twenty different illustrators from all over the world worked on this book.

Another reason why I love this bible is the fact that the illustrations show people of all races.

This book really deserves a spot on our bookshelf!



A nice weekend to all of you!

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My bookshelf - Ingrid Jonker

Another book that has definitely earned a place on my bookshelf - Ingrid Jonker's poems. She was a South African poet who wrote in Afrikaans. The book contains her poems in Afrikaans and a translated version in Dutch. The language Afrikaans developed from 17th century Dutch dialects and a huge part of the vocabulary is of Dutch origin. With some practice, it is easy to understand.



Ingrid Jonker had a sad life, she suffered from severe depression and she committed suicide at the age of 31. On May 24 1994, almost 30 years later, Nelson Mandela opened the first democratic Parliament of the new South Africa, and in his speech, he read Ingrid Jonker's poem "Die Kind (The Child)", which revived interest in the life and work of Ingrid Jonker.

-----

The child who was shot dead by soldiers at Nyanga
The child is not dead
The child lifts his fists against his mother
Who shouts Afrika ! shouts the breath
Of freedom and the veld
In the locations of the cordoned heart
The child who was shot dead by soldiers at Nyanga
The child lifts his fists against his father
in the march of the generations
who shouts Afrika ! shout the breath
of righteousness and blood
in the streets of his embattled pride

The child is not dead
not at Langa nor at Nyanga
not at Orlando nor at Sharpeville
nor at the police station at Philippi
where he lies with a bullet through his brain

The child is the dark shadow of the soldiers
on guard with rifles Saracens and batons
the child is present at all assemblies and law-givings
the child peers through the windows of houses and into the hearts
of mothers
this child who just wanted to play in the sun at Nyanga is everywhere
the child grown to a man treks through all Africa
the child grown into a giant journeys through the whole world

Without a pass

-----

Listen here to the poem in Afrikaans read by Ingrid herself. I love the melody of Afrikaans. The sound of the language is so much softer than Dutch.

A number of her poems have been set to music by South African musicians. Listen here for the beautiful African version of "Ontvlugting" ("Escape").

Last year a movie was released (in English) about Ingrid's life "Black butterflies". The main character is played by the Dutch actress Carice van Houten. I didn't see the movie yet, but I ordered the dvd.

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Purging the library

When I was young, my biggest wish was to have bookcases covering the walls of my living room. I loved reading and I went to the public library several times a week. Then I moved to Luxembourg and there was no library nearby (besides I found out that most of the Luxembourgers don't like to keep their books in the living room). That's when I started buying books, lots of them.

When I started decluttering and downsizing last year, I decided that I needed to take a closer look at my bookshelves too. I realized I didn't need to keep every single book I read and dust it off for the rest of my life (just to make me look smart). I started to purge the books I didn't like first. Then I brought a whole pile of old smelly paperbacks to the recycle center. Some weeks later I was ready to let go of the books that I read once, but would never read again.

I still had a lot of books left. Until both my washing machine and my dryer (can you imagine?!) broke down and they didn't get the new machines around the corner upstairs, where I have my bookcases. They said I had to move them. "Vous n'êtes pas sérieux?", I asked hopefully, but unfortunately they were. They "helped" me by taking out big piles and dropping them somewhere. So when they left me with all my books on the floor, I decided that this was the final round. I cleaned them and sorted them out. I have - of course - kept all the unread books and I forbid myself to buy new ones until I have read each and every one of them (can someone block my Amazon account please!). The books that earned a place on my bookshelf are special to me, I love and re-read them.

Let me show you some of the books that made it onto my bookshelf.

I have many books about Africa, and the interesting thing is that I bought most of them long before we adopted and fell in love with the continent.


^
I LOVE LOVE Kobie Krüger's The Wilderness Family. She writes about the magical years as wife of a game warden at South Africa's Kruger National Park. I loved every word in this book. We really have to go there someday and show the kids this part of their roots.


^
Another book about South Africa (I think there is no such thing as coincidence): Rae Graham's White Woman Witch Doctor. This is the autobiographic story of her life in South Africa and her rigorous ten-year apprenticeship to become a witchdoctor.


^
I dreamed of Africa. I have read this book several times. A beautiful and sad story of an Italian woman whose life is driven by love of Africa.

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Unread books

When decluttering my bookshelves some time ago, I came across many books waiting to be read. All the books on the photo are unread. Shame on me! I read about one book a month - it is very hard to find quiet moments in this house - so I have forbidden myself to buy new books until I have read every single one of these.



Perhaps I should have my Amazon account blocked, books are hard to resist!

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Summer reading list

As you can imagine, my three men were devastated last Sunday when we lost the World Cup finals from Spain. But hey...we survived! Fortunately, there is some hope left as the Luxembourger Andy Schléck is wearing the yellow jersey in the Tour de France. Luxembourg has +/- 500.000 inhabitants only and the whole country is extremely proud of him.

Last school day for the kids. There was a big party yesterday and now we are facing 9 !! weeks of school holidays. If you don't hear from me until mid September, I probably didn't survive.

I wanted to share my summer reading list with you. Well, some of the books are audio books. I love audio books. I've always dreamt of someone reading stories to me in bed, but then I married a Luxembourger who doesn't like reading (he plays basketball...).
I normally read in German, but I looked up the English titles on Amazon.com.



^ Snow Flower and the secret fan.



^ The shadow of the wind.



^ A thousand splendid suns.



^ Couldn't find this one, think it has not been translated into English.



^ This Nelson Mandela movie has been on my list for months. Having 2 children from South Africa, Mandela is our hero of course.



^ I think I'm going to like this one.

By the way, I stopped reading Diana Gabaldon's "Outlander". I have read about 100 pages and I didn't like it at all. I should have known better, this is not my kind of book.

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Books

Yesterday the postman made me very happy, he brought me the books I ordered from Amazon.



^ I love the Where Women Create magazine and books. I could look at the pictures for hours.





^ I have seen so many lovely paper projects on all your blogs, that I might give it a try myself!



^ I am sure I am going to love this one. I have read all her books, and found out only last week that she wrote a book about Africa.



^ I'm not sure about this one. It is the German translation of "Outlander". I have read so much about Diana Gabaldon's books and everybody is so excited that I took the risk and bought me the first part of the series. Normally it is not my style, but I really hope this one is good because it is such a nice thick book and there are 6 more parts. I still have to finish another book, but this one is next on my reading list.

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