This disturbed us. Of the eight books discussed, only three were on South Africa. Since many students already confuse Africa as a country and not a continent, using books about other countries to lead into studies of South Africa will only confuse students further. Outstanding picture books do exist on South Africa. For background on the country, these story books can be supplemented with non-fiction titles from publishers such as Children's Press and Lerner Publications.
Several sources exist for selecting books by country.
In addition, the magazine, Teaching Tolerance featured a fine article in its fall 1995 issue on approaches to teaching about Africa. Avoid focusing on the atypical. For example, My Painted House, My Friendly Chicken and Me does not convey the life of a tvpical child of the Ndebele people-much less of the wider South African population. Ndebele children do not dress in fine bead work all of the time, exccept in places where they are tourist attractions. Moreover, they do not have pet chickens.