Uncommon Traveler: Mary Kingsley in Africa

     When I think of multicultural books, I tend to think of immigrants that come to the United States. That's why I was so pleased when I found Uncommon Traveler: Mary Kingsley in Africa. It is the true story of a young girl who grows up in London, England and travels to West Africa when she is 31. To be quite honest, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane and Uncommon Traveler: Mary Kingsley in Africa are the only books I've chosen simply because their plot looked so intriguing.
    I am from Kansas City, and after to moving to Florida just 5 short months ago, I was in for a mild culture shock. I was sitting by a lake after a workout late at night (it's the only time I can sneak away from my mommy-obsessed toddler, which was fine until this happened!) when all of a sudden I see ripples from the corner of my eye. No sooner than me catching sight of movement did I actively watch a five-foot alligator head straight towards me as he rose from the lake. I shone my cell phone on myself because I knew alligators were afraid of people, so I knew that once he was aware of my knowledge of him that he would stop moving. I then proceeded to run like a white girl from Kansas City who was about to be eaten by the largest wild animal she'd ever seen! When I saw the cover of Uncommon Traveler: Mary Kingsley in Africa shortly after my life-threatening experience, I stopped dead in my tracks. I had to see what Mary does about being so close, and with such limited resources, when faced with a crocodile: the alligator's not-so-scared-of-people cousin!
     Set in the 1860s-90s, Uncommon Traveler: Mary Kingsley in Africa is a nonfiction picturebook that really attracts readers of all ages, but was designed to be read by students aged approximately 5-7 years old. Page 24 of our text, Literature and the Child, states that the text within nonfiction picturebooks should be precise, accurate, and have interesting terminology. The illustrations should also be appealing, accurate, and concise. Again on page 306 we are provided with a checklist for the text portion of nonfiction books. Accuracy should be researched through credible facts and artifacts, and the author should be knowledgeable on subject. This is very true and evident within  Uncommon Traveler: Mary Kingsley in Africa. "In a swamp, an eight-foot-long crocodile 'chose to get his front paws over the stern of my canoe'" (Brown, 2002). It is through sentences like these in which Brown quotes Kingsley's own words from her journals. Nonfiction books should also have logical and easily understandable organization of ideas, and include an equal balance of fact and theories. The design should be appealing with eye-catching accurate and representational illustrations. Proper syntax and terminology for the settings should be exemplified, and all of this is true for the retelling of Kingsley's journeys in Africa. In 2001 it won a Boston Globe-Horn award for Nonfiction Honor Books, and is listed on page 399 in our text.
    The illustrations are just as important in a nonfiction book, with a soft watercolor medium, Brown depicts a portrait of a woman through soft textures and representational art style. The animals she comes in contact with are brought to life through the saturated colors. The bold outlines leave room for imagination as the detail isn't very specific, especially in characters' faces. Readers are still able to see an accurate setting for the different scenarios, and the illustrations enhance the story in tenfold.     
     For my young classroom, I would like to read an array of different genres. The fist time I read this book was for this blog, and as an adult I even thought it was fictional until I looked at it deeper once I got home. I would ask the children to gather around for story time, and when I finished, I would ask students if they thought it was fiction or nonfiction, which would also allow me a moment to reiterate the differences between the two, and if you have followed my blog, you know how much I love repeating things for the sake of retaining it! So gathering around as a group to read Uncommon Traveler: Mary Kingsley in Africa would allow for several different things to be discussed. Another great activity revolving around this book is to act as our favorite animal that Mary comes in contact with. For example, if a student's favorite animal was the crocodile, he or she could stand in place moving their stiff arms adjacent to one another, to represent a crocodile's jaws moving up and down. We could also color in animals that were incorporated to the story to their accurate colors. My reader response questions would be:

1. Which part of the story was your favorite? Why?
2. Which animal that Mary came in contact with did you not like? Why didn't you like that animal?
3.  Why do you think Mary moved across the world?
4. Would you ever go on a journey like this? Why or why not? 
5. If you could go anywhere in the world like Mary did, where would you go? 

References

     Brown, D. (2002). Uncommon traveler: Mary Kingsley in Africa. (1st ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children.
     Galda, L., Cullinan, B. E., & Sipe, L. R. (2011). Literature and the Child. (7th ed., pp. 24 - 399). Belmont: Wadsworth Pub Co.