North Africa—Fiction
In my last column (January/February 2026), I introduced some of the non-fiction books I made available to kids for the summer reading game I had in my children’s library. The 2025 topic was North Africa. The children read up a storm; among the almost 30 who took part, a third read more than 100 books, and one read more than 200.
In this column, I’ll describe a few of the many fiction books available. Although most of them are centered on Egypt, there is more variety than with the non-fiction. So, since most of the books mentioned in my last column were about Egypt, I’ll start here with books set in other countries.
Ethiopia
For books set in Ethiopia, you might well start with the author Jane Kurtz, who grew up there. Pulling the Lion’s Tail tells the story of a girl who wants to earn her stepmother’s love. She is advised to bring her a hair from a lion’s tail, something she can only obtain with great patience. There is another version of the same story called The Lion’s Whiskers, by Nancy Raines Day, but this one concerns a stepmother who wants to win over a young boy.
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Kathie Johnson has always had a love for children's books. She collected many as a teacher and began sharing them with other teachers. In 1986, she opened a children's library in her home, and it has continued to expand over the years. Many home-schooled and schooled children borrow books from it, and she takes great pleasure in finding the "right" book for a child. She attends First Presbyterian Church in Berkeley.
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