These suggested readings provide a range of perspectives on issues raised by the POV documentaryPresident and allow for deeper engagement. Compiled by Sarah Burris from Bay County Public Library.

Adult Non-Fiction

Birch, Sarah. Electoral Violence, Corruption, and Political Order.Princeton University Press, 2022.
Throughout their history, political elections have been threatened by conflict, and the use of force has in the past several decades been an integral part of electoral processes in a significant number of contemporary states. However, the study of elections has yet to produce a comprehensive account of electoral violence. Drawing on cross-national data sets together with fourteen detailed case studies from around the world, Electoral Violence, Corruption, and Political Order offers a global comparative analysis of violent electoral practices since the Second World War.

Cheeseman, Nic and Brian Klaas. How to Rig and Election.Yale University Press, 2018.
Contrary to what is commonly believed, authoritarian leaders who agree to hold elections are generally able to remain in power longer than autocrats who refuse to allow the populace to vote. In this engaging and provocative book, Nic Cheeseman and Brian Klaas expose the limitations of national elections as a means of promoting democratization, and reveal the six essential strategies that dictators use to undermine the electoral process in order to guarantee victory for themselves. Based on their firsthand experiences as election watchers and their hundreds of interviews with presidents, prime ministers, diplomats, election officials, and conspirators, Cheeseman and Klaas document instances of election rigging from Argentina to Zimbabwe, including notable examples from Brazil, India, Nigeria, Russia, and the United States.

Coltart, David. The Struggle Continues: 50 Years of Tyranny in Zimbabwe. Jacana Media, 2016.
David Coltart is one of the most prominent political and human rights figures in Zimbabwe. In 2000, he was elected to Parliament and, following the creation of a ‘coalition’ government in September 2008, he was appointed Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, a position he held until August 2013. Over the years, Coltart has been threatened, detained, spuriously prosecuted and has survived several direct attempts on his life. For three decades, Coltart has kept detailed notes and records of all his work, including a meticulous diary of Cabinet dealings, the source material for much of his book.

Frantz, Erica. Authoritarianism: What Everyone Needs to Know®.Oxford University Press, 2018.
Despite the spread of democratization following the Cold War's end, all signs indicate that we are living through an era of resurgent authoritarianism. Around 40 percent of the world's people live under some form of authoritarian rule, and authoritarian regimes govern about a third of the world's countries. In Authoritarianism: What Everyone Needs to Know®, Erica Frantz guides us through today's authoritarian wave, explaining how it came to be and what its features are. She also looks at authoritarians themselves, focusing in particular on the techniques they use to take power, the strategies they use to survive, and how they fall. Understanding how politics works in authoritarian regimes and recognizing the factors that either give rise to them or trigger their downfall is ever-more important given current global trends, and this book paves the ways for such an understanding.

Fuller, Alexandra. Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood.Random House, 2001.
From 1972 to 1990, Alexandra Fuller–known to friends and family as Bobo–grew up on several farms in southern and central Africa. Her father joined up on the side of the white government in the Rhodesian civil war, and was often away fighting against the powerful black guerilla factions. Her mother, in turn, flung herself at their African life and its rugged farm work with the same passion and maniacal energy she brought to everything else. Though she loved her children, she was no hand-holder and had little tolerance for neediness. She nurtured her daughters in other ways: She taught them, by example, to be resilient and self-sufficient, to have strong wills and strong opinions, and to embrace life wholeheartedly, despite and because of difficult circumstances. And she instilled in Bobo, particularly, a love of reading and of storytelling that proved to be her salvation.

Godwin, Peter. The Fear: Robert Mugabe and the Martyrdom of Zimbabwe. Little, Brown and Company, 2011.
Journalist Peter Godwin has covered wars. As a soldier, he's fought them. But nothing prepared him for the surreal mix of desperation and hope he encountered when he returned to Zimbabwe, his broken homeland. Godwin arrived as Robert Mugabe, the country's dictator for 30 years, has finally lost an election. Mugabe's tenure has left Zimbabwe with the world's highest rate of inflation and the shortest life span. Instead of conceding power, Mugabe launched a brutal campaign of terror against his own citizens. With foreign correspondents banned, and he himself there illegally, Godwin was one of the few observers to bear witness to this period the locals call The Fear. He saw torture bases and the burning villages but was most awed as an observer of not only simple acts of kindness but also churchmen and diplomats putting their own lives on the line to try to stop the carnage.

Holland, Heidi. Dinner with Mugabe: The Untold Story of a Freedom Fighter who Became a Tyrant.Penguin Global, 2008.
With plunging life expectancy, soaring inflation, and unemployment, repression, and starvation fueling a mass exodus, Zimbabwe is a nation in crisis. Its president, Robert Mugabe-once lauded for his heroics as a guerilla leader who fought against white-minority rule in the 1960s- is now seen as the man who ruined the country and cast shame on the African conti­nent. Beginning with a dinner shared with Mugabe the freedom fight­er and ending in a searching interview with Mugabe as Zimbabwe's president more than thirty years later, Heidi Holland's incisive and timely investigation charts Mugabe's gradual self- destruction and probes the mystery of Africa's loyalty to one of its worst dictators.

Kenyon, Paul. Dictatorland: The Men Who Stole Africa.Head of Zeus, 2018.
The austere, incorruptible leader who has shut Eritrea off from the world in a permanent state of war and conscripted every adult into the armed forces. In Equatorial Guinea, the paranoid despot who thought Hitler was the savior of Africa and waged a relentless campaign of terror against his own people. The Libyan army officer who authored a new work of political philosophy, The Green Book, and lived in a tent with a harem of female soldiers, running his country like a mafia family business. And behind these almost incredible stories of fantastic violence and excess lie the dark secrets of Western greed and complicity, the insatiable taste for chocolate, oil, diamonds and gold that has encouraged dictators to rule with an iron hand, siphoning off their share of the action into mansions in Paris and banks in Zurich and keeping their people in dire poverty.

Perry, Alex. The Rift: A New Africa Breaks Free.Little, Brown and Company, 2015.
Africa has long been misunderstood and abused by outsiders. Correspondent Alex Perry traveled the continent for most of a decade, meeting with entrepreneurs and warlords, professors and cocaine smugglers, presidents and jihadis. Beginning with a devastating investigation into a largely unreported war crime-in 2011, when the US and the major aid agencies helped cause a famine in which 250,000 Somalis died-he finds Africa at a moment of furious self-assertion. To finally win their freedom, Africans must confront three last false prophets-Islamists, dictators and aid workers-who would keep them in their bonds. Beautifully written, intimately reported, and sure to spark debate, The Rift passionately argues that a changing Africa revolutionizes our ideas of it, and of ourselves.

Rogers, Douglas. The Last Resort: A Memoir of Mischief and Mayhem on a Family Farm in Africa.Crown, 2009.
Born and raised in Zimbabwe, Douglas Rogers is the son of white farmers living through that country’s long and tense transition from postcolonial rule. He escaped the dull future mapped out for him by his parents for one of adventure and excitement in Europe and the United States. But when Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe launched his violent program to reclaim white-owned land and Rogers’s parents were caught in the cross fire, everything changed. Lyn and Ros, the owners of Drifters–a famous game farm and backpacker lodge in the eastern mountains that was one of the most popular budget resorts in the country–found their home and resort under siege, their friends and neighbors expelled, and their lives in danger. But instead of leaving, as their son pleads with them to do, they haul out a shotgun and decide to stay.

Rogers, Douglas. Two Weeks in November: The Astonishing Untold Story of the Operations that toppled Mugabe.Short Books Ltd., 2019.
Two Weeks in November is the thrilling, surreal, unbelievable and often very funny true story of four would-be enemies - a high ranking politician, an exiled human rights lawyer, a dangerous spy and a low-key white businessman turned political fixer - who team up to help unseat one of Africa's longest serving dictators, Robert Mugabe. What begins as an improbable adventure destined for failure, marked by a mixture of bravery, strategic cunning and bumbling naivete, soon turns into the most sophisticated political-military operation in African history. By virtue of their being together, the unlikely team of misfit rivals is suddenly in position to spin what might have been seen as an illegal coup into a mass popular uprising that the world and millions of Zimbabweans will enthusiastically support.

Ndlovu, Ray. In the Jaws of the Crocodile: Emmerson Mnangagwa’s Rise to Power in Zimbabwe.Penguin Random House South Africa, 2019.
The fall of Robert Mugabe and the inauguration of Emmerson Mnangagwa as Zimbabwe’s new president in November 2017 were events that no one could have predicted. Just three weeks earlier, Mugabe had sacked Mnangagwa as vice president, a move that seemed to end the long political career of the man known as ‘The Crocodile’. From exile in South Africa, where he had been forced to flee for his life, Mnangagwa made a statement telling Mugabe that he would return ‘in a matter of weeks’ to take control of the levers of power in government and in ZANU-PF. It was a journey with little guarantee of success. However, family members, business associates and allies took serious risks to support him, while a nation squeezed by dire economic meltdown and a deep longing for new leadership raised the stakes and demonstrated against Mugabe after a military intervention.

Nyamayaro, Elizabeth. I am a Girl from Africa: a Memoir. Scribner, 2021.
When severe drought hit her village in Zimbabwe, Elizabeth, then eight, had no idea that this moment of utter devastation would come to define her life purpose. Unable to move from hunger, she encountered a United Nations aid worker who gave her a bowl of warm porridge and saved her life. This transformative moment inspired Elizabeth to become a humanitarian, and she vowed to dedicate her life to giving back to her community, her continent, and the world. Grounded by the African concept of ubuntu "I am because we are," I Am a Girl from Africa charts Elizabeth's quest in pursuit of her dream from the small village of Goromonzi to Harare, London, New York, and beyond, where she eventually became a Senior Advisor at the United Nations and launched HeForShe, one of the world's largest global solidarity movements for gender equality.

Sithole, Ndabaningi. African Nationalism, 3rd Edition.Ndabaningi Sithole Foundation, 2022.
What was the fight for Africa's independence all about? Was it just about majority rule? Was it to replace foreign economic and political systems with home-grown African systems or for Africa to remain with and/or adopt foreign systems? In African Nationalism, the late African freedom fighter Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole presents a compelling account of why Africans sought their independence and his vision of a system that would be ideal for Africa's governance.

Tendi, Blessing-Miles. The Army and Politics in Zimbabwe: Mujuru, the Liberation Fighter and Kingmaker.Cambridge University Press, 2020.
An illustrious African liberation fighter in the 1970s and, until his suspicious death in 2011, an important figure in Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party in Zimbabwe, this first full-length biography of General Solomon Mujuru or Rex Nhongo throws much needed light onto the opaque elite politics of the 1970s liberation struggle, post-independence army and ZANU-PF. Based on the unparalleled primary interviews with informants in the army, intelligence services, police and ZANU PF elites, Blessing-Miles Tendi examines Mujuru's moments of triumph and his shortcomings in equal measure. From his undistinguished youth and poor upbringing in colonial Rhodesia's Chikomba region, his rapid rise to power, and role as the first black commander of independent Zimbabwe's national army, this is an essential record of one of the most controversial figures within the history of African liberation politics.

Adult Fiction

Bulawayo, NoViolet.Glory.Viking, 2022.
NoViolet Bulawayo's bold new novel follows the fall of the Old Horse, the long-serving leader of a fictional country, and the drama that follows for a rumbustious nation of animals on the path to true liberation. Inspired by the unexpected fall by coup in November 2017 of Robert G. Mugabe, Zimbabwe's president of nearly four decades, Gloryshows a country's imploding, narrated by a chorus of animal voices that unveil the ruthlessness required to uphold the illusion of absolute power and the imagination and bulletproof optimism to overthrow it completely. And at the center of this tumult is Destiny, a young goat who returns to Jidada to bear witness to revolution and to recount the unofficial history and the potential legacy of the females who have quietly pulled the strings here.

Bulawayo, NoViolet.We Need New Names.Reagan Arthur Books, 2013.
Darling is only ten years old, and yet she must navigate a fragile and violent world. In Zimbabwe, Darling and her friends steal guavas, try to get the baby out of young Chipo's belly, and grasp at memories of Before. Before their homes were destroyed by paramilitary policemen, before the school closed, before the fathers left for dangerous jobs abroad. But Darling has a chance to escape: she has an aunt in America. She travels to this new land in search of America's famous abundance only to find that her options as an immigrant are perilously few.

Dangarembga, Tsitsi.Nervous Conditions.Graywolf Press, 2021.
Two decades before Zimbabwe would win independence and ended white minority rule, thirteen-year-old Tambudzai Sigauke embarks on her education. On her shoulders rest the economic hopes of her parents, siblings, and extended family, and within her burns the desire for independence. She yearns to be free of the constraints of her rural village and thinks she’s found her way out when her wealthy uncle offers to sponsor her schooling. But she soon learns that the education she receives at his mission school comes with a price.

Gappah, Petina.An Elegy for Easterly: Stories.Faber & Faber, 2009.
In her spirited debut collection, the Zimbabwean writer Petina Gappah brings us the resilience and inventiveness of the people who struggle to live under Robert Mugabe’s regime. She takes us across the city of Harare, from the townships beset by power cuts to the manicured lawns of privilege and corruption, where wealthy husbands keep their first wives in the “big houses” while their unofficial second wives wait in the “small houses,” hoping for a promotion. Despite their circumstances, the characters in An Elegy for Easterly are more than victims—they are all too human, with as much capacity to inflict pain as to endure it. They struggle with the larger issues common to all people everywhere: failed promises, unfulfilled dreams, and the yearning for something to anchor them to life.

Hove, Chenjerai.Bones.Weaver Press, 2021. Originally print in 1989.
Bones is a powerful, heart-rending novel that provides a sensitive evocation of Marita, a farm worker, whose only son joined the freedom fighters in Zimbabwe's war of liberation. He does not return after the war and Marita is determined to find him or find out what happened to him. This is perhaps a single clear theme in a landscape where women, particularly the poor and the marginalised, suffer many layers of oppression. Marita's courage and endurance are reconstructed through the memories of those who knew her in a language steep in poetry and Shona idiom.

Huchu, Tendai.The Hairdresser of Harare, Ohio University Press, 2015.
Vimbai is the best hairdresser in Mrs. Khumalo’s salon, and she is secure in her status until the handsome, smooth-talking Dumisani shows up one day for work. Despite her resistance, the two become friends, and eventually, Vimbai becomes Dumisani’s landlady. He is as charming as he is deft with the scissors, and Vimbai finds that he means more and more to her. Yet, by novel’s end, the pair’s deepening friendship used or embraced by Dumisani and Vimbai with different futures in mind—collapses in unexpected brutality. The novel is an acute portrayal of a rapidly changing Zimbabwe. In addition to Vimbai and Dumisani’s personal development, the book shows us how social concerns shape the lives of everyday people.

Lessing, Doris.The Grass is Singing,Perennial Classics, 2000. Originally print in 1950.
Set in Southern Rhodesia under white rule, Doris Lessing's first novel is at once a riveting chronicle of human disintegration, a beautifully understated social critique, and a brilliant depiction of the quiet horror of one woman's struggle against a ruthless fate. Mary Turner is a self-confident, independent young woman who becomes the depressed, frustrated wife of an ineffectual, unsuccessful farmer. Little by little the ennui of years on the farm works its slow poison. Mary's despair progresses until the fateful arrival of Moses, an enigmatic black servant. Locked in anguish, Mary and Moses—master and slave—are trapped in a web of mounting attraction and repulsion, until their psychic tension explodes with devastating consequences.

Marechera, Dambudzo.Black Sunlight.Penguin Classics, 2010. Originally print in 1980.
In an unspecified setting the stream-of-consciousness narrative of this cult novel traces the fortunes of a group of anarchists in revolt against a military-fascist-capitalist opposition. The protagonist is photojournalist Chris, whose camera lens becomes the device through which the plot is cleverly unraveled. In Dambudzo Marechera’s second experimental novel, he parodies African nationalist and racial identifications as part of an argument that notions of an ‘essential African identity’ were often invoked to authorize a number of totalitarian regimes across Africa.

Mungoshi, Charles.Waiting for the Rain.Zimbabwe Publishing House, 2000.
The award-winning writer Charles Mungoshi is recognized in Africa, and internationally, as one of the continent's most powerful writers today. This early novel deals with the pain and dislocation of the clash of the old and new ways - the educated young man determined to go overseas, and the elders of the family believing his duty is to stay and head the family.

Staunton, Irene ed.Writing Still: New Stories from Zimbabwe.Weaver Press, 2003.
The history of Zimbabwe has always been reflected in its oral and written literature. Much of the serious fiction written in the 1980s and early 1990s focused on the effects of Zimbabwe's war of liberation. Little has yet been written about post-independence Zimbabwe and the complex and challenging issues that have arisen in the last twenty years. This anthology of twenty-two short stories provides a representative sample of the range and quality of writing in Zimbabwe at the turn of the century, and an impressionistic reflection of the years since independence in 1980.

Tshuma, Novuyo Rosa.House of Stone. W. W. Norton & Company, 2019.
In the chronic turmoil of Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, Abednego and Agnes Mlambos teenage son, Bukhosi, has gone missing. Erudite, enigmatic Zamani, their lodger, seems to be their last, best hope for finding him. In his eagerness to help, Zamani is almost a part of the family but almost isn’t nearly enough. Ingratiating himself to Mama Agnes and feeding alcoholic Abednegos addiction, he is desperate to extract their life stories and make their family history his own. As the Mlambos pray for Bukhosis return, Zamani will stop at nothing to make a home for himself and each of them must confront the past to find a place in the future. Bursting with wit, seduction, and dark humor, Novuyo Rosa Tshumas unflinching epic about the fall of Rhodesia and the turbulent birth of Zimbabwe celebrates the persistence of the oppressed in a nation seeking its identity amid political chaos and violence.

Vera. Yvonne.The Stone Virgins.Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003.
In 1980, after decades of guerilla war against colonial rule, Rhodesia earned its hard-fought-for independence from Britain. Less than two years thereafter when Mugabe rose to power in the new Zimbabwe, it signaled the beginning of brutal civil unrest that would last nearly a half decade more. With The Stone Virgins, Yvonne Vera examines the dissident movement from the perspective of two sisters living in a small township outside of Bulawayo. In a portrait painted in successive impressions of life before and after the liberation, Vera explores the quest for dignity and a centered existence against a backdrop of unimaginable violence; the twin instincts of survival and love; the rival pulls of township and city life; and mankind's capacity for terror, beauty, and sacrifice. One sister will find a reason for hope. One will not make it through alive.

Young Adult Non-Fiction

Alifirenka, Caitlin and Martin Ganda.I Will Always Write Back: How One Letter Changed Two Lives.Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2015.
The New York Times bestselling true story of an all-American girl and a boy from Zimbabwe and the letter that changed both of their lives forever. It started as an assignment. Everyone in Caitlin's class wrote to an unknown student somewhere in a distant place. Martin was lucky to even receive a pen-pal letter. There were only ten letters, and fifty kids in his class. But he was the top student, so he got the first one. That letter was the beginning of a correspondence that spanned six years and changed two lives. In this compelling dual memoir, Caitlin and Martin recount how they became best friends—and better people—through their long-distance exchange. Their story will inspire you to look beyond your own life and wonder about the world at large and your place in it.

Anderson, Carol.One Person, No Vote: How Not all Voters are Treated Equally.Bloomsbury, 2019.
Carol Anderson chronicles the rollbacks to African American participation in the vote since the 2013 Supreme Court decision that eviscerated the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Known as the Shelby ruling, this decision effectively allowed districts with a demonstrated history of racial discrimination to change voting requirements without approval from the Department of Justice. Focusing on the aftermath of Shelby, Anderson follows the astonishing story of government-dictated racial discrimination unfolding before our very eyes as more and more states adopt voter suppression laws. In gripping, enlightening detail she explains how voter suppression works, from photo ID requirements to gerrymandering to poll closures. And with vivid characters, she explores the resistance: the organizing, activism, and court battles to restore the basic right to vote to all Americans as the nation gears up for the 2020 presidential election season.

Jenkins, Tommy.Drawing the Vote: The Illustrated Guide to the Importance of Voting in America. Abrams ComicArts, 2020.
Coinciding with the 2020 US presidential election, Drawing the Vote, an original graphic novel, looks at the history of voting rights in the United States and how it affects the way we vote today. Throughout the book, the author, Tommy Jenkins, identifies events and trends that led to the unprecedented results of the 2016 presidential election that left American political parties more estranged than ever. To balance these complex ideas and statistics, Kati Lacker’s original artistic style makes the book accessible for readers of all ages. At a time when many citizens are experiencing challenges and apathy about voting and skepticism concerning our bitterly divided government, Drawing the Vote seeks to offer some explanation for how we got here and how every American can take action to make their vote count.

Miller, Michael.Fake News: Separating Truth from Fiction.Twenty-First Century Books, 2019.
While popularized by President Donald Trump, the term "fake news" actually originated toward the end of the 19th century, in an era of rampant yellow journalism. Since then, it has come to encompass a broad universe of news stories and marketing strategies ranging from outright lies, propaganda, and conspiracy theories to hoaxes, opinion pieces, and satire―all facilitated and manipulated by social media platforms. This title explores journalistic and fact-checking standards, Constitutional protections, and real-world case studies, helping readers identify the mechanics, perpetrators, motives, and psychology of fake news. A final chapter explores methods for assessing and avoiding the spread of fake news.

Plouffe, David.Ripples of Hope: Your Guide to Electing a New President.Henry Holt, 2020.
Now more than ever, young people around the world are standing up and speaking out. As President Barack Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe saw firsthand that nothing is more powerful than young people believing deeply in something. With an expert's overview of the presidential election process and concrete ways to get involved, Ripples of Hope is a book for this generation--impassioned, creative, and ready to make a difference.

Rusch, Elizabeth.You Call this Democracy? How to Fix Our Government and Return Power to the People.Houghton Mifflin Company, 2020.
All of the challenges facing our democracy today such as problems with the electoral college, gerrymandering, voter suppression, lack of representation, voter disinterest, citizens who cannot vote, lobbying, money lead to two questions: why doesn't every vote really count? And what are we going to do about it?

Young Adult Fiction

Emezi, Akwaeke.Pet.Make Me a World, 2019.
In a near-future society that claims to have gotten rid of all monstrous people, a creature emerges from a painting seventeen-year-old Jam's mother created, a hunter from another world seeking a real-life monster.

Sylvester, Natalia.Running.Clarion Books, 2020.
In this authentic, humorous, and gorgeously written debut novel about privacy, waking up, and speaking up, Senator Anthony Ruiz is running for president. Throughout his successful political career he has always had his daughter’s vote, but a presidential campaign brings a whole new level of scrutiny to sheltered fifteen-year-old Mariana and the rest of her Cuban American family, from a 60 Minutes–style tour of their house to tabloids doctoring photos and inventing scandals. As tensions rise within the Ruiz family, Mari begins to learn about the details of her father’s political positions, and she realizes that her father is not the man she thought he was.

But how do you find your voice when everyone’s watching?

Williams, Michael.Diamond Boy.Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2014.
"Diamonds for everyone." That's what fifteen-year-old Patson Moyo hears when his family arrives in the Marange diamond fields. Soon Patson is working in the mines along with four friends, pooling their profits for a chance at a better life. Each of them hopes to find a girazi, a priceless stone that could change their circumstances forever. But when the government's soldiers come to Marange, Patson's world is shattered. Set against the backdrop of Zimbabwe's brutal recent history, Diamond Boy is the story of a young man who succumbs to greed but finds his way out through a transformative journey to South Africa in search of his missing sister, in search of freedom, and in search of himself.

Books for Younger Learners & Children

Atinuke.Africa, Amazing Africa: Country by County.Candlewick Press, 2021.
A Nigerian storyteller explores the continent of Africa country by country: its geography, peoples, animals, history, resources, and cultural diversity. The book is divided into five distinct sections (South, East, West, Central, and North) and each country is showcased on its own bright, energetic page brimming with friendly facts on science, industry, food, sports, music, wildlife, landscape features, even snippets of local languages. The richest king, the tallest sand dunes, and the planet's largest waterfall all make appearances along with drummers, cocoa growers, inventors, balancing stones, salt lakes, high-tech cities, and nomads who use GPS Atinuke's lively and comprehensive introduction to all fifty-five African countries evokes the continent's unique blend of modern and traditional.

Knight, Margy Burns and Mark Melnicove.Africa is Not a Country.Millbrook Press, 2022, Originally print in 2000.
Enter into the daily lives of children in the many countries of modern Africa. Countering stereotypes, Africa Is Not a Country celebrates the extraordinary diversity of this vibrant continent. The updated August 2022 edition includes updates to the text, statistics, and illustrations to reflect Africa in the 2020s.

Shamir, Ruby.What’s the Big Deal about Elections.Philomel Books, 2018.
We hear a lot about political campaigns on the news, but there's tons to know about elections beyond the politics of each race. Who gets to vote? Who gets to run? What do elected officials do once they're in office--and what do candidates do if they lose? Why do people fight so hard for the right to vote? In this kid-friendly, fact-filled book, young readers will find out how Americans choose their leaders, local and federal, and why elections should matter to them, even if they can't vote (yet).

St. John, Lauren.The White Giraffe.Puffin Books, 2008.
When Martine’s home in England burns down, killing her parents, she must go to South Africa to live on a wildlife game preserve, called Sawubona, with the grandmother she didn’t know she had. Almost as soon as she arrives, Martine hears stories about a white giraffe living in the preserve. But her grandmother and others working at Sawubona insist that the giraffe is just a myth. Martine is not so sure, until one stormy night when she looks out her window and locks eyes with Jemmy, a young silvery-white giraffe. Why is everyone keeping Jemmy’s existence a secret? Does it have anything to do with the rash of poaching going on at Sawubona? Martine needs all of the courage and smarts she has, not to mention a little African magic, to find out.

Trent, Tererai and Lori Grainger.Zandi Finds Ubuntu.Halo Publishing International. 2016.
Zandi Finds Ubuntu is a warm, gentle story about a little girl, Zandi, who is growing up on the savannas of Zimbabwe, Africa. During the story she discovers how character traits exhibited by animals are similar to those seen in people. The story teaches the importance of friendship, love, hard-work, loyalty, trustworthiness, and determination in achieving “Ubuntu”, or the meaning of life and happiness.