You have a little history buff in the house, but your biographies are a little too grown up. The new kid-friendly book “Nelson Mandela” by Kadir Nelson gives children just the right amount of information.
As a little boy, Mandela — then called Rolihlahla, his given Xhosa name — loved to play with his friends, fighting pretend battles, and hunting with slingshots on the grassy hills of Qunu, South Africa. But he couldn’t play forever: Rolihlahla was smart and needed an education. So his mother sent him to a local Methodist school.
At school, Rolihlahla’s teacher refused to say his Xhosa name, so she called him “Nelson.”
As Nelson grew, he attended the finest schools in Johannesburg. He became a lawyer, so he could help his poor and powerless countrymen.
But something else bothered Nelson just as much as poverty: the government had a policy that split its citizens into three groups, and it wasn’t fair. They called it apartheid, and many hated it.
So Nelson organized rallies and spoke to the people. He was jailed for speaking up, but he never stopped fighting against apartheid.
That is, until he was caught, arrested, and imprisoned. He was sent to a small island where he sat in a tiny room every day, eating cold meals and working hard labor. He was there so long that when he got out, his children had grown up. More importantly, South Africa had ended apartheid.
Finally, after almost 28 years, Nelson Mandela was set free. He was elected as South Africa’s new leader. And the people celebrated.
You always want to give your child a good sense of history, whether it’s in the past or in the making. “Nelson Mandela” is a good book for both.
Author Kadir Nelson is honest in telling what happened, without being scary. Curious readers will appreciate that this book is made kid-friendlier with a two-page section at the end that could help answer lots of questions.
But Kadir Nelson’s words are only half of the appeal.
Nelson is also the illustrator here, and his paintings — from the magnificent cover to every page inside — make this a book you’ll want to browse, whether your children are around or not.
Kids ages 4 to 7 will love this story, and I think older children will appreciate it, too. If your budding historian needs a little time out for reading, “Nelson Mandela” is a book they should spend time with.
“Nelson Mandela” by Kadir Nelson [32 pages, 2013, $17.99].
Terri Schlichenmeyer has been reading since she was 3 years old, and she never goes anywhere without a book. She lives on a hill with two dogs and 12,000 books.
