Memories of Sun Edited by
Jane Kurtz. Cover illustration by Marc Tauss. (2003) Reading Level:
Ages 10 up. ___ pages. Greenwillow Books. ISBN: 0-06-051050-1 $15.99.
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Memories of Sun
Edited by Jane Kurtz
Quoted from the book flap: "What is it like to grow up in different parts of Africa today?
And what's it like to be a child of two cultures -- an American living in Africa or an African living in America?
In South Africa visit the Bushman Farm, where a lonely
girl meets a group of Bushmen who are making their living as a tourist
attraction -- and finds friendship and family as she's never known them
before. In Tanzania join an American family on an unforgettable safari
whose highlights include a broken car, a camp of armed men, heat,
tsetse flies, and laughter. In Los Angeles be surprised by what happens
when a teenage veteran from war in Sierra Leone comes into conflict
with a local gang leader.
Jane Kurtz, who is herself a child of two cultures --
Ethiopia and America -- has gathered a remarkable collection of voices.
These twelve stories and three poems sing of Africa, of America, and of
people changing, growing, crying, and laughing under the same sun.
Excerpts from this powerful collection:
Their whispers reminded me of the way the village
women looked at me, like they felt sorry for me, as if there was a
hidden secret that no one wanted to speak about. -- from "October Sunrise" by Monica Arac de Nyeko.
At last her father isolated the source of the
monkey's anguish, and everyone drew near, and looked, and they were
deeply horrified at what they saw. -- from "Her Mother's Monkey" by Amy Bronwen Zemser.
"They taught me how to shoot the gun...how to kill."
He looked away. "And I killed." Tears began to run down his face. "Many
People." -- from "Soldiers of the Stone" by Uko Bendi Udo.
 Starred
Review -- "This riveting collection of poems and short stories by
award-winning African and African-American writers shares the
complexities and surprises of living between two cultures and sometimes
of one's own culture.... Whether tender, adventurous, or
heart-wrenching, these poems and stories stir readers to experience
Africa-its pain and its beauty." -- Kirkus Reviews
Named on Kidsbookmanager.com's Top Ten YA books for January (2004).
"Africa isn't all about lions and hyenas, although they certainly
appear in this collection of stories. There are also wonderful
discoveries, like the story of a lonely girl who finds companionship
with a group of bushmen who are making a living as a tourist
attraction. From the haunting opening poem by Nikki Grimes to the last
story by Sonia Levitin, this is a wonderfully compelling collection.
(ages 10+)" -- from http://kidsbookmanager.com/.
Each of these writers contributed stories or poems to this collection --
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Monica Arac de Nyeko: Monica Arac de Nyeko: She was one of the
seven African writers whose story made the final cut. She is a member
of a group of Uganda Women Writers ñ Femrite. Nyeko was born and raised
in Uganda. She comes from Kitgum district, an area to the north of
Uganda which has been affected by war since 1986. She is a fellow on
Crossing Boarders a British Council funded Creative Writer's Course.
She was awarded the Eric Bleumink Scholarship to study for a master
degree program in Humanitarian assistance at the university of
Groningen Netherlands. Her novella The Last Dance is forthcoming with
Fountain publishers. Her personal essay In the stars won a first prize
in the Women's WORLD writing contest designed to bring women's ideas on
war and terror to wider public attention. She hopes one day her people
the Acoli from northern Uganda, will rediscover the joy of peace after
over 17 years of brutal war.
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Mawi Asgedom: At the age of three, Mawi Asgedom fled his
homelands of Eritrea and Ethiopia and became a refugee in a Sudanese
camp for the next three years.
By the time he was seven he had immigrated to the United States at age
seven where he struggled to overcome cultural and financial challenges.
He earned a full-tuition scholarship to Harvard University and when he
graduated in 1999, he gave a commencement address to an audience of
30,000. His first book, Of Beetles and Angels: A Boy's Remarkable Journey from a Refugee Camp to Harvard was widely acclaimed. In 2003, his second book The Code: 5 Strategies of Teen Success was published. Mawi Asgedom's website.
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Elana Bregin: The English Academy of South Africa named Elana Bregin the winner of the Percy FitzPatrick Award for 2000 for her book, The Slayer of the Shadows. Bregin is a Durban-based author, best known for her award-winning Young Adult titles, which include The Kayaboeties, The Boy from the Other Side and The Red-haired Khumalo.
She holds an MA in English cum laude from the University of Natal,
where her thesis examined colonial and other representations of the
Bushmen. She is a dynamic force in the efforts to help new South
African writing voices to emerge.
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Lindsey Clark: "My first sight of the African continent
was from a boat ferrying passengers from Algeciras,
Spain, to Tangier, Morocco. I was on winter vacation
during the year I spent studying in Italy. Those
first four days in Morocco seemed to me the definition
of foreign and 'exotic.' It never occured to me that
four years later (to the week!) I would be moving to
Morocco to work as a Peace Corps Volunteer. In those
four years, I had finished college near Boston, taught
science for two years in rural North Carolina, and
traveled in fourteen other countries on four
continents. All of those experiences ended up
changing my idea of what 'exotic' means. By the time
I went to live in Morocco, I was able to see it as a
home."
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Meri Nana-ama Danquah: Danquah was born in Ghana and left when
she was six to come to Washington, D. C. Her grim childhood contributed
to her bouts of mild depression and periods of extreme depression.
After the birth of her daughter she suffered an emotional slump so
severe she feared she was going crazy. She suffered her illness in
silence until she wrote Willow Weep for ME: A Black Woman's Journey Through Depression
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Nikki Grimes: The celebrated poet and author Nikki Grimes was
born and raised in New York City. As the author of more than two dozen
books for children, she has described writing as "her first love and
poetry as her greatest pleasure." In 2003 two of her books were honored
by the Coretta Scott King Award Committee. She received an Author Award
for Bronx Masquerade, and an Author Honor for Talkin' About Bessie. Visit Nikki Grimes web site.
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Angela Johnson: Johnson was born June 18, 1961 in Tuskegee
Alabama. She attended Kent State University and has worked with
Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), Ravenna, OH, as a child
development worker, 1981-82; and is currently a free-lance writer of
children's books. She has authored picture books, books of poetry, and
novels. Her novel Heaven was the winner of the 1999 Coretta Scott King Author Award. That same year her book of poetry, The Other Side, The: Shorter Poems was named as a Coretta Scott King Honor Book.
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Jane Kurtz: Jane was born in Portland, Oregon, but moved to
Ethiopia, when she was two years old. Except for a year in Boise, Idaho
(when she was seven) and a year in Pasadena, California (when she was
thirteen), she lived there until she returned to the United States to
attend college. She says she "grew up as someone who is sometimes
labeled a 'third-culture kid,' a person who doesn't ully belong in her
parents' culture but doesn't fully belong in the culture around her,
either." Visit Jane Kurtz's homepage.
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Sonia Levitin: Levitin has said, ³I have escaped war. I have
been an immigrant, an outsider, and lonely in a new land. I have been
persecuted, the only Jew in the entire school. I have been the
brightest student and also the dullest; I have been rejected and also
praised for my accomplishments." Levitin was born in Germany in 1934.
At the age of one her family took her to Brazil, but when her father
could not make a living in South America they returned to Berlin, only
to flee to the United States in 1938. Her first book, published in
1970, Journey to America told the story of the family
s escape. The book has been in print since it was first published. Visit Sonia Levitin's web site.
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Maretha Maartens: Maretha Maartens, a Bloemfontein-based writer
and columnist, was the biographer of the former first lady, Marike de
Klerk who was first divorced from the president and later murdered in
her Cape Town home. Maartens's YA novel, Ink Birds is the story of a teenager in the Black townships. It was translated from Afrikaans.
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Elsa Marston: Marston grew up in Massachusetts and lives in
Bloomington, Indiana. She studied at Vassar College and earned degrees
at the University of Iowa (American Civilization), Harvard University
(International Affairs), and Indiana University. She also spent two
years at the American University of Beirut, where she met her husband,
Iliya Harik. His family connections and work as a political scientist
have taken them and their three sons to North Africa and the Middle
East many times. The cultures and history of the area, both ancient and
modern, inspire much of Marston's writing. Elsa Marston's web site.
From Casablanca to Suez I've seen North Africa, really part of the
Mediterranean world; but thus far the closest I've come to the rest of
the continent is through my son's life-changing Peace Corp experience
in Cameroon. Maybe someday I'll have the chance! The U.S., I feel, owes
Africa so much, in many ways . . . I hope this much-needed book will
help today's young Americans appreciate and share as equals with our
African "global village" neighbors. -- Elsa Marston
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Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen: Stuve-Bodeen's childhood included life
on a farm in Wisconsin and in many several midwestern states: Iowa,
Minnesota, Indiana, as well as California, Montana in the USA, and
later in Tanzania and East Africa where she was a Peace Corp volunteer.
Since June of 2002 she has lived on Midway Atoll -- now a national
wildlife refugee (1200 miles west of Hawaii), where her husband is the
refuge manager. The couple have two daughters. Stuve-Bodeen is the
author of several books including Elizabeti's Doll, Mama Elizabeti , and Elizabeti's School ,-- which are set in Tanzania. Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen's web site.
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Uko Bendi Udo: Professionally Uko Bendi Udo is in journalism and
education. He enjoys travelling, listening to classical and world
music. He holds dual Nigerian and American citizenships and currently
lives in Los Angeles. A few years after the Los Angeles riots of 1992
he wrote "The Cop"
-- the story of a Los Angeles police officer who goes through a debate
within himself as he closes in on a suspect who might just turn out to
be a best friend from high school. Email: Uko Bendi Udo
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Amy Bronwen Zemser: Zemser's first novel, Beyond the Mango Tree
was widely acclaimed. The story of an American girl living in Liberia
while her father works for an African lumber company. Sarina's mother
is afraid she will make friends in this country -- so when a friend her
own age comes -- a boy called Boima, the friendship must be her secret.
It was Amy Bronwen Zemser's childhood in Africa that provided her with
much of the material for this book, the rich details, and the colorful
descriptions of the Liberian culture, language, and countryside. Zemser
moved to Liberia in 1980 when she was eleven years old and lived there
for three years.
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