Mama Elizabeti

This book and its companion book, Elizabeti's Doll are perfect for preschool and primary school-age children who are getting interested in dolls. My almost-four-year-old is an only child but she likes to play "big sister" to smaller children. The story and illustrations tenderly show how a slightly older sister takes care of her toddler brother in an East African Village.

Gave it to a 6 year old. She loves it.

Excellent story, good values expressed, and engaging for my 4 year old, read it almost every day! Recommend for anyone.

Arrived as promised!

I like it better than Elizabeti’s Doll. But not better than Elizabeti’s school. When her mother had another baby, Elizabeti had to take care of her younger brother. But it was harder than taking care of her rock doll. Remember the doll’s name? Eva! In this book the family had four children. The fourth baby was a girl named Flora. Remember the brother’s name? Obedi! This book also shows Elizabeti’s father. I guess her parents divorced. In the first book Elizabeti had an older sister named Pindo, but she wasn’t seen in this book. I guess Pindo went to college. Where do these books take place?

After reading Mama Elizabeti by Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen, it appears that in this book the author's shares her knowledge as well as her experience from her days in the Peace Corps. The author also demonstrates the connection with a reading strategy known as text to world. Using this strategy she shows that there are similarities from other cultures of the world to our own. I recommend that this book be used as an excellent example to demonstrate how children throughout the world help their parents and find that growing up is part of a continuing learning experience. The book explains to children that as they grow up and learn, they will find not only joy and gratification in helping their parents and siblings, but they will also become aware that they do not need to give up their childhood pleasures and experiences. The book gives the reader the feeling that each person will find the time to enjoy things from the past, present, and future. It is a book that might be shared between parent and child, or in a classroom setting. It is a wonderful example of multicultural reading. I would also highly recommend this book to be used to model as well as be a starting point for discussion of the reading strategy: text to world. It is often difficult to find books that help teachers teach both multicultural experiences and strategies, this book is an example of both.

I bought this book because I loved the first one, Elizabeti’s Doll so much. It’s just as good as the first one and another celebration of life, babies, and families!

This book is a great book to use when teaching about diversity. I don’t suggest using this for younger students to read independently, but but it can be used to read aloud to a group!

These books are great for our children as they normalise life in African setting - they live in the UK, but their grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins live in Zambia and this is a great way we can talk about life here and there