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Overview
In school one day, a little girl named Linda learns about East Africa and a tall, proud people called the Masai
"If I were a Masai"' Linda wonders, "would I live in an apartment building the way I do now? Would I have a pet hamster of a new pair of sneakers? What would my family be like if I were Masai?"
Linda's observations celebrate things that are different and theings that are the same, as her imagination opens the door to a place where Masai might be I, and I, Masai.
Linda, a little girl who lives in the city, learns about East Africa and the Masai in school, and imagines what her life might be like if she were Masai.
Synopsis
When a little girl learns in school about a tall, proud African people called the Masai, she discovers a sense of kinship and imagines herself living in Africa. She would live in a circle of huts in a tiny village. Instead of having a hamster as a pet, she would live among the giraffes and zebras on the African plain. Using energetic language, Masai and I is a joyous celebration of two unique cultures. Full color.
Children's Literature
Prompted by the "tingle of kinship" she felt when she learned about East Africans in school one day, an elementary grader compares her daily customs with those of the people she studied, in Virginia Kroll's Masai And I. Were she Masai, she muses, she'd do many things differently: sleep on cowhide on the bare earth, eat with her mom and other women apart from the men and boys, live among the African animals she sees in the Zoo, and more. Nancy Carpenter's oil and color pencil paintings vivify the wistful musings of a young African-American, entranced by the discovery of a heritage she might share.