Celebrate Kwanzaa: With Candles, Community, and the Fruits of the Harvest

by Carolyn Otto

Overview

Celebrate Kwanzaa continues the spectacular Holidays Around the World series by focusing on this African-American holiday, which falls during the festive, gift-giving season and is celebrated by families, communities, and schools throughout America. With succinct, lively text and beautiful photographs, the book celebrates African-American culture and helps us to understand and appreciate this special holiday.

Over the course of seven days, African Americans, families and friends, come together to light the candles that symbolize their past and future—and their unity. They gather as a community to make music and to dance; to feast on harvest foods and the good things of the earth; and to exchange simple, often homemade, gifts. Readers are introduced to the symbols of the holiday, such as the mkeka (a special placemat), kinara (candleholder), and kikombe cha umoja (unity cup). Important concepts, like the seven principles, are explained. In addition, a note from the book's consultant, aimed at parents and teachers, puts the holiday in its full cultural and historical perspective.

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781426328497
Publisher:	Disney - RHCB
Publication date:	09/05/2017
Series:	Holidays Around the World
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 9.80(h) x 0.20(d)
Age Range:	6 - 9 Years

About the Author

Carolyn B.Otto is the author of more than 20 books, including several award-winning children's non-fiction titles. She has also written poetry and fiction for children and adults. She earned her master's degree from New York University. She now lives in Colorado Springs, CO.

Editorial Reviews

2017-10-28
An overview of the modern African-American holiday.This book arrives at a time when black people in the United States have had intraracial—some serious, some snarky—conversations about Kwanzaa's relevance nowadays, from its patchwork inspiration that flattens the cultural diversity of the African continent to a single festive story to, relatedly, the earnest blacker-than-thou pretentiousness surrounding it. Both the author and consultant Keith A. Mayes take great pains—and in painfully simplistic language—to provide a context that attempts to refute the internal arguments as much as it informs its intended audience. In fact, Mayes says in the endnotes that young people are Kwanzaa's "largest audience and most important constituents" and further extends an invitation to all races and ages to join the winter celebration. However, his "young people represent the future" counterpoint—and the book itself—really responds to an echo of an argument, as black communities have moved the conversation out to listen to African communities who critique the holiday's loose "African-ness" and deep American-ness and moved on to commemorate holidays that have a more historical base in black people's experiences in the United States, such as Juneteenth. In this context, the explications of Kwanzaa's principles and symbols and the smattering of accompanying activities feel out of touch.A good-enough introduction to a contested festivity but one that's not in step with the community it's for. (resources, bibliography, glossary, afterword) (Nonfiction. 5-8)

Kirkus Reviews