Mubina Hassanali Kirmani

In the book "Bundle of Secrets: Savita Returns Home", the main character Sativa, is given the job of keeping the family bundle safe on their journey back to Kenya. As she is in the car on her way home, she realizes she left the bundle on the boat and quickly goes back to retrieve it. When she finally gets to open the bundle, it contains a bunch of spices and herbs that were popular in her culture. As Savita continues her journey home, she realizes how proud she is of her home and of her culture. The central message of this book is that no matter what culture you come from, you should be proud of it and don't let anyone ruin your pride.… (mehr)

The friends must work together to come up with a way to save a bug who is stuck on his back and unable to move. I liked this book because I felt that the plot was very orginized and logical while the language enhaced this by being clear and descriptive.The plot flowed in a way that felt orginized, properly paced and had conflict that was solved in a reasonable way. The story does not feel like it takes forever to get to the conflict or that the conflict was resolved to quickly. The children in the book work through the problem in an apropriate way and amount of time for the concept being aimed for. In the book, the author writes "... were on the playground, leaping off and on the spinning whirl-around and jumping into the piles of crackly golden leaves." This quote is very descriptive while using apporpriate language for the intended age but paints a clear picture in the readers head of the scene being set. Additionally the author did a great job of addressing multicultural differences in a way that fit the story even though it was not the main concept or idea. She incorporated it through natural children conversation as they played on the playground fitting it perfectly into the rest of the book. The big concept in this book is to entertain the reader while incorporating multicultural understanding.… (mehr)

I had mixed feelings about this book. I really liked how this book was multicultural and gave children an easy to understand background on both of the cultures in the book while also telling a story that is intriguing to children. For example, the book explains how Indian spices are used while they are cooking in Africa. The book also flowed very well and was relatable and engaging plot wise to many different children even ones that have not experienced travelling to a far away place. The illustrations were extremely simple yet amazing and really added to the story. I did not like that the book was missing the element of pushing readers to think about tough issues and that it had certain words that were well above the age that the book was intended for academically. By this I mean that the story line and the overall word choice seemed to suit 1st grade through third grade yet there were a few words in the book that were more than challenging for that level. In the story there is no real conflict or issue to think about or resolve. The child comes home with her mom from India and re immerses herself in the African culture while adding Indian culture but there is no issue. Some of the words that are disproportionally challenging are "monotony" "inhabitants" and a few others that are well above grade level. I feel that challenging words should be incorporated however they have to be minimal and achievable. The main idea of this book was to teach children about the lives of children in other countries many years ago.
I do want to note that this book has an award. the award is the African studies association children's Africana book for the year 2014.… (mehr)