by Ardo Omer
This year, we introduced a new challenge for December: 2024 in Reflection. This new addition allowed us the flexibility to look back at the year and showcase a conversation that we felt was important to cover. We started the year with reading a book by a Palestinian author and this year, we’ve witnessed two other conflicts happening simultaneously that we believe should also get some attention.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been experiencing a civil war; a power struggle between the country’s military-run government and a powerful paramilitary group that has led to the world’s “largest displacement crises” according to the United Nations.
The global quest for “clean energy” means a high demand for natural resources like cobalt which is used to power our devices. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has 75% of the world’s cobalt and right now, it’s experiencing a humanitarian crisis as a result of it that includes forced evictions, forced labour, deaths and so forth to power the mines at the expense of the Congolese people.
It is impossible to cover all of the conflicts in the world but the reason we’re ending the year with what’s been happening in Sudan and in the DRC is because of who the victims are. The world has this belief that conflict is a given in the African continent but that belief is both racist and dehumanizing. These conflicts are the result of colonialism, capitalism and have impacts on the climate. We should care because human beings are at the centre of it.
So we urge you to read children’s books and young adult by Sudanese and Congolese folks. We urge you to read more about what’s happening in those countries.
1) For Our Daughters by Mel Nyoko, illustrated by Joelle Avelino (Picture Books)
An inspirational and empowering book about what mothers, especially Black mothers, want their daughters to know.
This inspiring book gives girls permission to let their lights shine. They want all girls to know that there are no limits on what they can achieve.
One by one, common misconceptions are flipped and replaced by empowering statements such as your hair is like a magnificent crown or you are like the moon among stars, or you shine the brightest. They suggest that if people doubt you or try to discourage your ambitions, you should disregard them and pursue your dreams to the fullest. Page after page offers examples of how girls can respond to discouraging situations and triumph.
Powerful and striking images filled with vibrant colors add to the impact and truth of this encouraging text.
Words and pictures encourage and inspire all girls everywhere, but particularly Black girls. For Our Daughters is a testament to love who you are, exactly as you are.
2) Child Soldier: When Boys and Girls Are Used for War by Michel Chikwanine and Jessica Dee Humphreys, illustrated by Claudia Dávila (Middle Grade)
Michel Chikwanine was five years old when he was abducted from his school-yard soccer game in the Democratic Republic of Congo and forced to become a soldier for a brutal rebel militia. Against the odds, Michel managed to escape and find his way back to his family, but he was never the same again.
After immigrating to Canada, Michel was encouraged by a teacher to share what happened to him in order to raise awareness about child soldiers around the world, and this book is part of that effort. Told in the first person and presented in a graphic novel format, the gripping story of Michel’s experience is moving and unsettling. But the humanity he exhibits in the telling, along with Claudia Dávila’s illustrations, which evoke rather than depict the violent elements of the story, makes the book accessible for this age group and, ultimately, reassuring and hopeful.
The back matter contains further information, as well as suggestions for ways children can help. This is a perfect resource for engaging youngsters in social studies lessons on global awareness and social justice issues, and would easily spark classroom discussions about conflict, children’s rights and even bullying. Michel’s actions took enormous courage, but he makes clear that he was and still is an ordinary person, no different from his readers. He believes everyone can do something to make the world a better place, and so he shares what his father told him: “If you ever think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping in a room with a mosquito.”
3) Listen, Layla by Yassmin Abdel-Magied (Young Adult)
Exploring the diaspora experience, race, politics, and identity, Listen, Layla is an own voices novel for young readers, bursting with passion, humor, and truth.
What’s a queen to do when her summer plans go horribly wrong? A powerful, funny, and timely novel for young readers.
Layla has ended the school year on a high and can’t wait to spend the holidays hanging out with her friends and designing a prize-winning Grand Designs Tourismo invention. But Layla’s plans are interrupted when her grandmother in Sudan falls ill and the family rushes to be with her. The last time Layla went to Sudan she was only a young child. Now she feels torn between her Sudanese and Australian identities. As political tensions in Sudan erupt, so too do tensions between Layla and her family. Layla is determined not to lose her place in the invention team, but will she go against her parents’ wishes? What would a Kandaka do?
4) Home Is Not a Country by Safia Elhillo (Young Adult)
A novel in verse about family, identity, and finding yourself in the most unexpected places.
Nima doesn’t feel understood. By her mother, who grew up far away in a different land. By her suburban town, which makes her feel too much like an outsider to fit in and not enough like an outsider to feel like that she belongs somewhere else. At least she has her childhood friend Haitham, with whom she can let her guard down and be herself. Until she doesn’t.
As the ground is pulled out from under her, Nima must grapple with the phantom of a life not chosen, the name her parents didn’t give her at birth: Yasmeen. But that other name, that other girl, might just be more real than Nima knows. And more hungry. And the life Nima has, the one she keeps wishing were someone else’s. . .she might have to fight for it with a fierceness she never knew she had.
Ardo Omer