Margaret Musgrove

Margaret Musgrove has written an engaging and beautiful alphabet book. Using traditions, customs, vocabulary and setting she is able to introduce the reader to some of the many peoples of Africa. While each pictures displays gorgeous details to examine and texture to fall into, the text offers up traditions and information about varied peoples and traditions from a vast continent. There is a lot of information on every page, but the intricate illustrations aid in explaining some of the show more unfamiliar words.

It's one book, but the pages powerfully convey how much there is to learn and how much more there is to know about Africa and the people. Musgrove was able to distill down exhaustive research into a book anyone could enjoy. I could go on, but I could also sit back and turn through the pages again. It's clear that a new reading would offer up a never-before-seen bird, kente patterns to appreciate, or a smaller figure I had yet to notice. show less

In my opinion, this book was good but could have been better. It is an informative book about all the many different African traditions. First, the book has incredible illustrations that displayed each culture and what it talked about in the description. For example,when the author talks about the Masai tribe, they are described as have long thick hair with red clay and cow grease and in dozens of tiny neat braids. That is exactly how the illustration is painted. The language in this picture show more book was also very interesting. It showed proper ways of pronouncing each tribe and shared words and meanings that were specific to that tribe. For instance, when the author talks about the Hausa tribe, she describes it as "a strong voice rings out like a song chanting 'Allah is Great' from the tower of a mosque. I feel like this story could have had better descriptions however. Most of the book is illustrations and very limited descriptions of the traditions themselves. Since it is an informative book, there should be more information about the traditions and tribes. The main idea of this story is to learn about all the many African Traditions. show less

A well designed book for young children with informative text and wonderful illustrations giving some of the customs of various African peoples. There is also a map of Africa to show where the homelands of these people are located. This book will probably be part of the next set of my son's childhood books that I send to his children.

I like this book because of its visual brilliance and appreciation for spiders. This story uses bright colors and patterns purposefully. Both features bring the content of the story to life visually. For example, the spider's web contains a variety of colors which emphasizes its beauty. The two men are in awe of the spider's creation which is shown when the narrator says, "the men felt terrible for wrecking the magnificent web the night before". The story shares an appreciation for spiders show more by describing the spider's spider weaving process as a dance. It says "she moved like a woman dancing, regal and very graceful". This promotes a positive attitude towards spiders instead of the popular reaction of fear and disgust from people. This story's central idea is sharing an appreciation for what spiders can do and celebrating the beauty of the webs through redesigning "their looms so they could imitate the spider's weaving dance...and they named this new woven cloth kente-nwen-ntoma". This shows a pure, appreciative attitude towards spiders and their webs. show less