100 Books Like Unbowed

Barack Obama’s father was part of the story of Kenya’s road to freedom, and yet his son, Barrack, hardly knew him. His father met Barack’s mother while on a scholarship to the USA but abandoned her and his son when he returned to Kenya in 1964 and became a senior economist in the Kenyan Ministry of Finance.

We researched his life when writing our book. My co-author, Nancy Mudenyo Hunt, is also of Luo ancestry. Her father attended Obama’s funeral. This memoir is a testimony to the struggle of children of mixed heritage to decide on their identity. I find it sad that the young Obama is identified by the father who left him and not by his mother who cherished him.

I appreciate books that help me understand the world and how we got here. Professor of History at Harvard, Caroline Elkins, spent seven years researching Britain’s Gulag. The UK is justly proud of standing up to Hitler’s fascism, but we need to look dispassionately at the history of the British Empire. Kenyan soldiers fought alongside British armed forces in WW2, but their reward was not medals.

The Mau Mau uprising in Kenya in the fifties was a massive armed rebellion by the Kikuyu people, demanding the return of their land and freedom. The response of Britain's colonial government was to detain nearly the entire Kikuyu population of one-and-a-half-million - to hold them in camps or confine them in villages ringed with barbed wire - to treat and portray them, including ex-British soldiers, as sub-human savages.  

Feel the force of fifty children’s voices and celebrate how art and story-telling unite young people who live continents apart. At age seven, I discovered libraries and a love of reading and writing, but the idea that a working-class girl from Luton could become an author was as crazy as eating the straw boater with which my birthplace was associated.

Middle-class parents can afford to buy books for their children. Lack of access to books for children without them is a handicap for upward mobility. That is why the Nasio Trust wants to build the first community library in West Kenya, and Cosmic Cats will be the first book in the library to show the children that they belong there. In our imaginations, we are all equal. BBC South recorded the launch, bringing together the two schools.

On a trip through Africa, Nancy stumbled upon this captivating book by Corinne Hofmann in a Tanzanian airport shop. Intrigued, she bought it and couldn’t put it down! It's an autobiographical story of Hofmann's life in Kenya, where she fell in love with and married a Maasai warrior.

This book resonated deeply with Nancy and me because we are both in mixed relationships. Nancy once followed a Maasai friend to their village, a land unlike any other. Living in a traditional hut and being the only educated person, especially a girl, was inspiring. Those were truly unforgettable moments. The right to education is one many African girls have to fight for. 

Wangari is from Kenya and grew up among many trees. When she is older and returns home, she notices that the trees have all been cut down. She decides to replant her own trees which starts a movement with many to reforest the land. She has many obstacles to overcome but, in the end, prevails. This is a story that shows determination in the face of many challenges to make a difference. I, of course, love that it also introduces children to a very different and very beautiful part of the world. This is another story that can connect us all. Jeanette Winter’s text and beautiful illustrations complement each other perfectly. 

I really like this book because it is a story about a strong woman, a science student, someone who studied at university. The message “if you are part of the problem, you can be part of the solution” and the message of education, and environmental responsibility resonates with me. The illustrations are gentle pastoral scenes and the fact that it was the women who saved Kenya from hunger and devastation makes this a must-read. My favourite scene is when Wangari is telling soldiers to have a gun in one hand and a seed in the other. The true story that just one person beginning with a small act of planting some seeds made a big difference is definitely worth a read.

Wow! Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai is an incredible inspiration for everyone. I loved learning about her ground-breaking work through this vibrant picture book biography. She left her village in Kenya and earned a Masters degree in the United States, which gave her a different perspective on the environmental devastation occurring in her home. Trees had been cut to make way for monocropping cash crops, resulting in dusty land and a lack of food. To solve the problem, she organized women to plant trees, uniting communities that had previously fought, and starting the Green Belt Movement—which eventually spread around Africa and the world. Despite political persecution, she protected human and environmental rights through peaceful protest, always promoting the value of working together. 

The story of environmental activist Wangari Maathai has been told many times, including in several children’s books. I chose this book not only for its spectacular scratchboard illustrations of the Kenyan countryside but also because of its thoughtful attention to Maathai’s passion for science and her path-breaking journey as an African woman scientist. Having overcome gender barriers in the pursuit of her education, Maathai went on to become the kind of scientist who stands up against injustice and for the land and its people.

Her mobilization of village women to plant trees all across Kenya, along with her bold political activism for freedom and democracy, won her the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. This book’s depiction of a scientist who moves between villages and university laboratories, valuing the work of rural people as much as that of city elites, reminded me of the ideal I tried to convey in Moth… show more.

I found Kenyan biologist and environmental activist Wangari Maathai’s story inspiring, heartbreaking, and ultimately, triumphant.

Prévot’s text may require you to read this one closely with your kids – and be ready for conversations about authoritarianism and political rights. At the same time, Maathai’s successes and accomplishments are astonishing: the book’s title is an understatement – the Green Belt Movement which she founded has planted about 50 million trees now.

Fronty’s illustrations are beautiful, easy to get lost in, and make this book sing. This is a visually striking work with an important story to tell about science, perseverance, and the true value of a tree.

Daphne Sheldrick has written this memoir to give us an insight into her life, saving and raising young elephants and numerous other wild animals with her husband in the Tsavo National Park in Kenya. Her book is hugely inspiring and, although Kenya is strictly speaking not in Southern Africa. South African and East African wildlife are very similar and her description of an orphan sanctuary inspired me to write about such a sanctuary in my own book.