“I enjoyed this book when I read it, but I have appreciated it more these weeks and months later. I didn’t expect it to stay with me like it has. My first impression was of a nice memoir told in a charming voice for a young audience. As time has passed, many of the simple events and happenings have resonated with me: the food preparation, the experience of the elders like Adjovito, Papa’s work as a logger and his subsequent illness. Also memorable are Kofi’s school experiences: the history lessons on Sundjiata Keita and the Mali Empire, the division of land into Togo, Ghana & Benin, the math tricks, the memorization melodies.
What makes the book unique is young Kofi’s point of view juxtaposed against the telling of the real story of a people who struggled but persevered. Because we get the story from the eyes of a boy from 8-13 we are tricked in a good way to digest more of the story. And although the story is deep, it is never brutal; although light, it’s never trivial. That mix is slyly refreshing and stays with you after you read it. And that’s very unique.
I would recommend this book because it gives the reader, in a very accessible and manageable volume, the experience of a typical West African childhood that illuminates our similarities through the specific lens of one boy in Togo who loves his family and learned through them to never give up.” — Read on Barnesandnoble and on Amazon