Title: I Lost My Tooth in Africa
Author: Penda Diakité
Illustrator:Baba Wagué Diakité
Genre: Diverse Perspective
Publisher: Scholastic
Copyright: 2006
Number of pages: 30
This story follows Amina, as she and her family travel to Africa to visit some of her father's relatives. On the plane ride to Africa she discovers that she has a loose tooth, and her dad tells her that if you lose a tooth while in Africa and stick it under a gourd the Africa tooth fairy will give you a chicken! Amnia does lose her tooth while in Africa, and gets two chickens instead of one! Her chickens lay eggs, but will she get to watch them hatch before they have to leave Africa?
The illustrations are colorful, inviting, and very detailed. The illustrator is the authors father, so having a book about a family that is written and illustrated by a family makes it even more enjoyable to read.
I would use this story in a second grade classroom. After reading the book a fun craft to do would be to have the students cut out a tooth shape and write a story of how they lost a tooth on it. You could also make a class graph of lost teeth. Make a graph with all of the months during the school year, and whenever a student loses a tooth, they place a tooth sticker on the appropriate month. At the end of each month, compare the number of teeth lost in each month by creating math problems by asking them questions like, "In which month were the most teeth lost?" or "How many more teeth did we lose in September than in March?".
Ive actually heard about this book and love it! I would use this book to teach my classroom about the different types of cultures and how in some ways they are alike, compared to ours. Using this book as an example: Both cultures believe in the tooth fairy, but in our culture we get money, and in their culture they get chickens! I'd personally take a chicken over a couple of dollars anyday :)
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