good name, receives a large reward for exposing a smuggling syndicate which saves his
family from poverty and pays his own school fees.
One of the most prolific writers in Nigeria is Cyprian Ekwensi and his children’s books
have proved very popular. The Drummer Boy (1960) is about a blind boy in modern
Nigeria, Trouble in Form Six and Juju Rock (1966) are set in high school, and the
dramatic Samankwe and the Highway Robbers (1975) concerns the struggle to survive
in the days after the Nigerian Civil War. A series of books about Mr B by Ken Saro-Wiwa
(1987) reached wide popularity when they were used as the basis of a Nigerian television
comedy series Basi and Company.
It is interesting to note that though many books of folk-tales have been published—
including The Drum and the Flute by Chinua Achebe, Stories My Mother Told Me by Remi
Adedeji, and The Hunter and the Hen by Oladele Taiwo— according to local expert Mabel
Segun, ‘While folktales are recognised as vehicles for teaching traditional values,
librarians have found that most children do not read folktales although they enjoy
listening to them being told’ (Segun 1989:8).
The stories of Geraldine Kaye (for example, Kwasi and the Parrot (1961), and Kofi and
the Eagle (1963)) stem from her years spent in Ghana. Popular books by Ghanaian
authors include D.K.Kwarteng’s My Sword My Life (1972), J.O. deGraft-Hanson’s The
Little Sasabonsam (1972) and the picture story book Tawia Goes to Sea by Meshack
Asare (1970).
Both Ghana and Nigeria are member countries of the International Board on Books
for Young People (IBBY).
East AfricaThe ‘wild animal safari’ has become the cliché of East African children’s books. Usually
published in England, such stories perpetuated Africa as a land full of animals. Willard
Price continued the genre with Safari Adventure (1966) and Lion Adventure (1967).
More realistic indigenous writing has come from the Kenyan teacher, Asenath Odaga,
with such stories as The Angry Flames (1968) and The Villager’s Son (1971). Mweru the
Ostrich Girl (1966) by Charity Waciuma is by an author whose books have a Kikuyu
setting. In a lighter vein has been The Hippo Who Couldn’t Stop Crying (1972) by Susie
Muthoni. Kenya has been a member of IBBY since 1988. Such previous English-colonial
countries as Uganda and Tanzania rely mostly on imported children’s books.
Southern AfricaBotswana had the great benefit of having author Naomi Mitchison resident there for
many years, and her children’s stories (for example, The Family at Ditlabeng (1970)) have
been rightly popular there. Modern publishing in Botswana has not progressed much
beyond locally printed staple-stitched paperbacks, but Mary Kibel has had several
stories published in such series as Oxford’s ‘Leopard readers’ (for example, Folk Tales
from Botswana).
Such adventurous publishers as Baobab Press and Anvil Press are producing good
books in Zimbabwe. Stories from a Shona Childhood by Charles Mungoshi (1989), The
790 THE WORLD OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE