ALA Booklist (Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 CDT 2007)

Eight-year-old Yatandou wonders when her village in Mali will receive the machine "that chews up millet." Pounding the grain by hand consumes most of the women's days, and Yatandou wonders how she can help raise money for the machine. She decides to sell her pet goat, and with her contribution, the women purchase the machine, which allows them to produce grain to sell. In addition, Yatandou receives literacy instruction so that she can help the mostly illiterate women track their sales. The occasional, unexplained historical references ("the evil emperors came to steal us for slavery") and figurative language ("the contraption will bring water out of the ground and light to our village") are better suited to older children than the typical picture-book audience. Sylvada's sensitive acrylics, in red-brown earth tones and melting gold, skillfully mimic the words' impressionistic, poetic style. The first title in the new Tales of the World series, this book offers a rarely seen view of a child's life in a traditional West-African village. Suggest also Cristina Kessler's My Great-Grandmother's Gourd (2000).

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Yatandou, the eight-year-old narrator of this lyrical first volume in the Tales of the World series, spends long days at work in her village in Mali. As she pounds millet kernels with a stick, she daydreams about going to school, where she might “learn book secrets like my brother did,” and about the day the village women save up enough money to buy a machine to grind the millet. National Book Award winner Whelan (<EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Paradise of Shadows, p. 61) introduces some local vocabulary (“I cover myself with my <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">hawli, my scarf, so the bird won’t see me”) and hews to a poetic tone (“A water jug has had its little journey on her head”). Although Yatandou seems more like a vehicle for presenting a remote culture than like a real girl, the narrative does give readers insight into her way of life. The text is set on a rich brick-colored background that evokes the ever-present red sand (“The desert lives with us,” says Yatandou) and that successfully counterpoints the luminosity of Sylvada’s (<EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">A Symphony of Whales) impressionistic paintings. Fields of yellows—for the morning sky, the stretches of desert, onion fields—suggest the inescapable heat, and the very air seems to undulate. Sylvada also shows Yatandou mastering the unyielding setting: in his first view of Yatandou, she appears engulfed by the landscape, but as the story progresses to a hopeful conclusion, the pictures grow more intimate, culminating in the touching close-up portrait that concludes the book. Ages 8-12. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Sept.)

School Library Journal

Gr 2-4-In a small village in contemporary Mali, eight-year-old Yatandou dreams of things she would like: new earrings, an education, and the freedom to soar like an eagle. These wishes seem impossible in a small, desert village where fetching water, collecting firewood, and pounding millet with a stick require a full day's labor from the girl, her mother, her grandmother, and her aunts just to survive. One day, Yatandou leads her precious goat, Sunjata, to market to sell. She gives the proceeds to her family so that they can get a grinding machine. When the "strange contraption" finally arrives, Yatandou quickly sees how it speeds the women's work and increases earnings. The girls and women learn to read and write in order to manage the machine's productivity. When there is enough money, the multifunctional platform can also bring pumped water and electricity to the village. Descriptions of the dry, sandy desert and the diverse marketplace are rich with simile and metaphor. Warm colors in subdued, realistic paintings emphasize not only heat and labor, but also the community bonds of people working with hope toward a common goal. An author's note describes the life-changing, economic impact of multifunctional platforms. While this title is suitable for independent reading, its child appeal is limited.-Julie R. Ranelli, Kent Island Branch Library, Stevensville, MD Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.