The Pond That Lies in My Village

A children’s picture book in rhyming verse by Sauda S. Kilumanga. A gem of a story told in rhyming verse, using repetitions to construct lengthening stanzas around a single idea. It is ideal for developing children’s reading skills or reading out loud, and the story is firmly rooted in a rural African setting. The rhyme traces the chain of creation behind a basket: the reeds dipped in dye, dried near barrels of squeezed ripe juicy berries, plucked by hands that work the land, that pull the reeds that grow by the weeds, in the pond that lies in the narrator’s village. An English-Swahili glossary of vocabulary is provided. A book that celebrates rural Tanzanian craft and labour, connects young readers to the cycles of land and making, and doubles as a language-learning resource for bilingual classrooms. Internationally distributed by African Books Collective.