Count Your Way through Africa

Book excerpt: Since its early use as a language of trade, Swahili has helped people of different African and Arabian cultures to communicate. Today it is the official language of two African nations. In Count Your Way through Africa, Jim Haskins uses the Swahili numbers one through ten to describe such things as seven animals native to Africa and nine lines of an African poem. The clear text and rich watercolor illustrations by Barbara Knutson combine to give young readers a sense of the warmth and diversity of Africa and its people.