Blood Diamonds: Tracing the Deadly Path of the World's Most Precious Stones

Campbell, Greg. Blood Diamonds: Tracing the Deadly Path of the World's Most Precious Stones . 2002. 280p. ISBN 9780813342207. 

Though diamonds are beautiful, they, aside from a few industrial uses, have no particular economic value aside from what we ascribe to them. It is therefore amazing that an entire ecosystem rose on the discovery of diamonds in Africa in the 1800s, and that these discoveries would make some men extremely rich, while impoverishing the local inhabitants and causing strife and war.

Diamonds were discovered in the 1930s in Sierra Leone, a country founded by the British to act as a home for freed slaves, and at the time still a British colony. International concerns like De Beers, the company responsible for the slogan "Diamonds are forever," entered the market. Exploitation of diamond mines were hard, however, for there were no roads and no effective way to provide security. Warlords and rebel groups stepped into the void, and began exploiting their own mines using slave labors. The diamonds were sold through middlemen, and weapons were bought with the proceeds, furthering war and instability as various groups fought each other and outside forces for control of the diamond mines.

The conflict has lead to mass casualties, including rape, slavery, amputations, and people being shot. Diamonds traded this way were revealed to have financed Al Qaeda and the 9/11 terrorists attack on the United States, and soon became referred to as blood diamonds for the violence inflicted on those who mined them and lived in the area. Despite promises to clean up their act and to provide transparency on the provenance of their diamonds, large companies continue to exploit a resource that is portable and easily hidden, that can be smuggled and laundered to show a different provenance. Until diamonds lose their attraction in the United States and elsewhere as an expression of love, people will continue to be hurt and die during their exploitation.

Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gikuyu and Mumbi

Thiong'o, Ngugi wa. Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gikuyu and Mumbi. 2020. 240p. ISBN 9781620975251. 

The Gĩkũyũ people of Kenya come from nine beautiful daughters, and one crippled one. These first girls, dubbed the Perfect Nine, were strong, courageous, and energetic. The youngest could not walk, but was an expert archer. She was often left behind as her sisters adventured.

Looking for suitable suitors for their daughters, Gĩkũyũ and his wife Mũmbi consulted with God, and were rewarded with a large pool of men eager to marry the daughters. Through heroic quests, trials, and challenges, the men are slowly winnowed down until ten remain, and were married to the ten daughters. While the nine eldest traveled the world on their adventures, the youngest learned to walk and became strong in her own name. 

These two stories, those of the suitors and the nine eldest daughters, intertwine with that of the youngest daughter to create a riveting lyrical tale. A foundational myth used to explain their origins, the Perfect Nine embraces strong women and retells, through tales of adventure, how the Kenyan tribes came to be. Fans of epics will appreciate this story, filled with legends, heroes, and villains. 

A Long Walk to Water: Based on a True Story

Park, Linda Sue. A Long Walk to Water: Based on a True Story. 2010. 128p. ISBN 9780547251271. Available at FIC PAR on the library shelves as well as an ebook from Overdrive,

Nya is a Sudanese girl. Though the year is 2008, her daily job is to walk half the morning from her village to the closest pond to retrieve water, then make the return trip home, only to head back again that afternoon. Every day, Nya travels to the pond twice a day, hauling a heavy container of water on the way back. In the summer months, the village moves to a larger lake, where there often is strife with other tribes. Nya would like to go to school and learn how to read and write, but there simply isn't time,

Salva is a Sudanese boy. It is 1985, and he is lucky because he gets to go to school. But when the village is attacked, Salva and the rest of the students flee in the bush. Too young to live by himself, Salva follows crowds of refugees as they slowly walk across Sudan to the relative shelter of a United Nations refugee camp in Ethiopia. Along the way, Salva has to endure the elements, the wild animals, and the violence that humans inflict on each other.

Told in alternating fashion, Nya and Salva's stories connect in a powerful and life changing way. Salva is the proof that there is always hope, and that all that is required is to take one step forward. Fans of realistic fiction will enjoy this story based on a real boy's life and trials as he escaped a war-torn country only to return and give it life again.

Things Fall Apart

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. 1992. 181p. ISBN 0-679-44623-0. Available at FIC ACH on the library shelves.

European colonial powers spread throughout Africa during the 1800s, but some areas were not reached until late in the century. When the white man, his religion and his government arrived in the area, it immediately created conflicts between the traditional ways of the local inhabitants and the new beliefs espoused by converts and those who saw a benefit to joining a new administration.

Okonkwo lives in the village of Umuofia, in what is now Nigeria. Well known for his wrestling and warfare abilities, Okonkwo swore when he was a child that he would never be like his father, a deadbeat who was indolent and had raked large debts with anyone who would lend him money. Even as a child, he promised himself he would be wealthy and secure the tribe’s four titles. Okonkwo worked hard and amassed wives and a large compound. As a serious man he became one of the tribe’s leader.

His relationships with his wives and children were often violent, but Okonkwo always considered himself a just man. When asked by the tribe’s seer to kill a child that had been placed in his care, he did not hesitate. This decisiveness made him a man to be reckoned with in the tribe. Unfortunately, an accidental gun discharge during a ceremony kills a boy, and forces Okonkwo into exile to the lands of his mother.

Taking his whole family there, Okonkwo rebuilds his wealth and awaits the end of the seven years of banishment from Umuofia. During this time, however, Europeans arrive in Nigeria. The missionaries are first to arrive, followed closely by soldiers and administrators. When Okonkwo returns to Umuofia, he sees first hand the havoc Europeans have cause to his tribe. Old cherished customs and traditions are now being replaced by Christianity and new ways of doing things, and Okonkwo is unable to adapt. In the end, Okonkwo would rather die than lose his way of life to the newcomers.

The first celebrated African novel, Things Fall Apart continue to be widely read in schools and remains popular today for its portrayal of pre-colonial life.

War Brothers: The Graphic Novel

McKay, Sharon E. & Daniel Lafrance. War Brothers: The Graphic Novel. 2013. 165p. ISBN 978-1-55451-488-5. Available at GFX MCK on the library shelves.

Uganda has been in the midst of a low-level civil war for decades. The Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, has fought the central government more to promote its leader than to achieve any real ideological goals. Known for brutally recruiting and training child soldiers, the LRA operates out of several countries in central Africa, including Uganda and South Sudan.

Jacob is a happy fourteen-year-old student at a prestigious school near his hometown of Gulu, when he and his friends are abducted by the LRA and forced to become slaves. Tony, one of Jacob’s friend who was hoping to become a priest, is forced to violently kill one of his friends with a stick, and he therefore becomes a “soldier” in the LRA. He gains access to weapons and food, but in the process loses some of his humanity. Jacob and his friends Paul and Norman remain slave, unwilling or unable to join the killing. Moving through the bush, they never sleep in the same place, they never have enough food, and violence permeates their camp.

Throughout these trying times Jacob meets Hannah and Oteka. Hannah had her ears cut off and now she’s an outcast, good enough to serve food but little else. Oteka is older and was a medical student before being forcibly enrolled and becoming the camp’s cook. When Norman is selected to be killed, Jacob knows that he must act. With Hannah and Oteka’s help, Jacob decide they must escape this very night. With soldiers of the LRA hunting them down, and the jungles of Africa teaming with wildlife, can Jacob save everyone, including his friend Tony?

Based on true stories of a conflict that still continues to this day, Jacob’s graphic tale is reminiscent of Arn’s experience in Never Fall Down. Both are individuals finding themselves in dire circumstances but retain their humanity and never lose hope of surviving and escaping their current conditions.

A Crack in the Sea

Bouwman, H. M. A Crack in the Sea. 2017. 358p. ISBN 978-0-399-54519-1. Available at FIC BOU on the library shelves.

Kinchen and Pip live with old man Ren, on the outside of Tathenn, the capital of the islands of Second World. When she returns home to discover that her 11-year-old brother has been invited to tea with the governor and the Raft King, Kinchen immediately worries. Pip can breathe underwater and can talk to fish, yet he has the worst time distinguishing between humans. They all look the same to him. For his part, the Raft King rules Raftworld, a large city constructed out of thousands of rafts that float tied together and powered by hydraulics.

The Islanders and the Raftworlders have always been at peace and meet every few years to exchange and trade. People willing to leave their home are welcomed with the other nation. The Raft King, however, is looking for a door so he can return to the First World, where his mother, Amelia, came from, and Pip is the one that can find this door by asking the fish.

Meanwhile, Thanh and his sister Sang are escaping warfare and Communist rule in Vietnam like so many, by boarding a small boat and risking the open sea to make landfall in Thailand, Malaysia or the Philippines. Accompanied by two adults, a baby, and another girl called Mai, they eventually stumble upon a doorway in the open sea held open by a Kraken, and are propulsed in the Second World.

Intermingled in their stories is the story of Venus and Swimmer, two African children who escape from a slave ship and live with a man they name uncle Caesar for a while, before being captured again and taken out onto another slave ship bound for Jamaica. Able to walk underwater, Venus rescues more than a hundred slaves, including her brother and her uncle, and they walk for days underwater before discovering a door leading to a new world.

These three stories all tie in together in a beautifully told tale of hope and redemption. Fans of intriguing fantasy will appreciate the well crafted main characters and the setting of the Second World.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

Kamkwamba, William and Bryan Mealer. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. 2009. 273p. ISBN 0-06-173032-7. Available at B KAM on the library shelves.

Located in the southeastern part of Africa, Malawi is a relatively poor country. William Kamkwamba’s parents were poor farmers who struggled to make ends meet, but when a famine struck their country they could no longer afford to send William to school. Always eager to learn, William decided to go to the local library instead. There he read a book that changed his life. Titled Using Energy, this book gave William a great idea: Why not build a wind generator to create electricity for his house?

Working hard and scrounging parts throughout the area, William was able in 2002 to erect his own power-generating windmill, and suddenly his family was the only one in the village to have electric light at night. With this plentiful power William could recharge phones and radios, and started making money. Using the same principles, he build a water pump for his mother so she wouldn’t have to make the long round trip every day carrying cans of water.

Though his neighbors all thought he was crazy, William’s dedication and drive to succeed helped him earn international fame through a TED talk and scholarship opportunities to study, first in Malawi, then at Dartmouth College. It also improved the lives of his village’s residents, and proved that it is possible to find solutions to problems that appear intractable.

Nelson Mandela

Holland, Gini. Nelson Mandela. 2002. 48p. ISBN 0-8368-5078-5. Available at B MAN on the library shelves.

One of the best known figure of the 20th century, Nelson Mandela took a stance against a racist and segregated South Africa and became its first black president. Born in 1918, Mandela was a member of the hereditary ruling family, but a falling out between his father and the local chief led to a return to his mother’s village. Upon his father’s death he returned to the court where he was educated both in leadership and social skills as well as in contemporary subjects taught in Methodist schools.

He was exposed to his second-class citizen status in his twenties, when he worked in Johannesburg as a night watchman in a mine. He realized that the majority of the population, which was black, was oppressed by a small minority of white people, descendents of the original Dutch, French and English settlers. The whites had devised a system of political and physical oppression known as the Apartheid, meaning apart. Mandela knew he had to fight against this system of exploitation.

He started the first black law firm in Johannesburg, and joined the African National Congress. At the same time the state was increasing police powers and jailing opponents, and soon Mandela found himself in jail, accused of treason. Condemned to life in prison, he spent more than two decades performing hard labor. On the outside, however, South Africans were organizing to fight the government. Riots, demonstrations, and boycott from other countries further isolated South Africa until its white minority had no choice but to grant political right to its majority.

In 1990, Mandela was freed from prison and pushed for further reforms. In 1994, he was elected to serve as the country’s first black president. During his administration he pushed for the Truth and Reconciliation commission, which studied the crimes perpetrated against the South African people.

Mandela retired from political life in 1998 but continued to be involved in making South Africa a better country for all of its people until his death in 2013.

I Will Always Write Back: How One Letter Changed Two Lives

Alifirenka, Caitlin and Martin Ganda. I Will Always Write Back: How One Letter Changed Two Lives. 2015. 392p. ISBN 978-0-316-24131-1. Available as an audiobook and as an eBook on Overdrive.

Caitlin is from Pennsylvania and leads a typical teenage girl’s life. Her parents own a house, they have two cars, and Caitlin’s favorite activities are collecting earrings and shopping. At the beginning of her seventh grade year, her English teacher gives every student the opportunity to a country for a pen pal. Caitlin selects Zimbabwe because it is exotic and different than everyone else, who select countries in Europe. She writes a first letter, and sends it in the mail.

In Zimbabwe, Martin Ganda is the smartest student in his grade. With fifty students to a classroom, Martin gets to sit upfront. The school only has a few textbooks that are kept by the teachers, but Martin nevertheless excels. When Caitlin’s letter arrives, Martin is assigned to write her back.

What began as a passing interest for both of them grows and blossoms into an enduring friendship. When Caitlin discovers that Martin’s family is starving due to unemployment and poor economic conditions, she enlists her family to help. Over the course of several years both families grew closer, with the goal of bringing Martin to the United States to study medicine at a university. A true tale of friendship and dedication, Caitlin and Martin’s story will inspire the reader to make a positive difference in the world.