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- Title
CULTURAL RELEVANCE OF CHILDREN'S BOOKS IN KENYA: THE CASE OF CAPTURED BY RAIDERS BY BENJAMIN WEGESA.
- Authors
MURIUNGI, COLOMBA KABURI
- Abstract
Children's books have the power to act as important tools for passing on cultural practices of the specific societies within which they are written, and also as a window through which children can see cultures other than their own. This article looks at the representation of the cultural practices of the Tondo and Bukusu communities in Kenya in Benjamin Wegesa's Captured by raiders (1989). Specifically, I examine how Tondo practices, such as raiding, polygamy, tattooing and eating habits, are witnessed through the eyes of Nanjala, a young Bukusu girl, who is captured by Tondo raiders. Nanjala's life in Tondoland allows young readers to witness the Tondo culture and compare it to the Bukusu culture. Since certain African and specifically Kenyan cultural practices are fast disappearing, I argue that children's texts like Captured by raiders have a cultural relevance: through them young readers discover certain knowledge which may not be readily available in their life experiences. Literature for children, therefore, can be an important record of culture, and today's children should be encouraged to read such fictional texts based on societal ways of life.
- Subjects
KENYA; CHILDREN'S books; CHILDREN'S literature; BUKUSU (African people); POLYGAMY in literature
- Publication
Mousaion, 2011, Vol 29, Issue 3, p140
- ISSN
0027-2639
- Publication type
Article