Read Africa Aloud

Read Africa Aloud is a new project which features author readings of outstanding books on Africa together with classroom applications and fun activities for children.

The Talking Baobab Tree

In this video, author-illustrator Nelda LaTeef, reads her CABA winner, The Talking Baobab Tree. It's a tale LaTeef heard while visiting a Wolof village in Senegal close to the Sahel. Produced by film-maker Arzouma Traore, this captivating retelling is great for all ages!

Nelda LaTeef is an award-winning author and illustrator. She grew up in a US Foreign Service family, and attended schools in Africa, Europe, and Asia.  Her children’s picture books have received the Children’s Africana Book Award, Storytelling World Winner Award, Literary Classics International Gold Medal, and they have been translated into many languages. Nelda holds a degree in social anthropology from Harvard University and is the author of Working Women for the 21st Century: Fifty Women Reveal Their Pathways to Success, selected by the New York Public Library as the best career book for young adults. Her latest children’s picture book, African Proverbs for All Ages, which she illustrated and co-authored with Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole, was selected by Oprah Winfrey as her first children’s Oprah Book, and it has been named a Junior Library Guild (JLG) Gold Standard Selection. 

Our 1st Video: I Lost my Tooth in Africa

In this video Penda Diakité reads her classic picture book. Penda is a Malian-American visual artist known for her mixed-media collages and film work. Born in Portland, Oregon, she grew up between the United States and Mali, West Africa. When she was fifteen she wrote I Lost my Tooth in Africa illustrated by her father artist Baba Wagué Diakité.

Check back for more videos!