ON A ROAD IN AFRICA

The genuine love special people give to wild animals leaps from the page in this book about Mama Orphanage (as Chryssee Perry Martin is known) and her fellow volunteers and workers at the Nairobi Animal Orphanage. Doner, who met Martin in the United States but traveled to Nairobi to see her work firsthand, gets the pictures just right—people, landscape, marketplace stalls, traffic jams caused by the matatus (taxi vans) and animals are rendered in warm blends of marker, oil washes and colored and black pencil. It is the text—written in simple, sometimes awkward, rhyme, with a refrain that repeats the title—which limits the scope of this book. With a little reworking, the short prose essays by the author and Martin at the end (accompanied by their photos) could have served as the narrative. Books that portray contemporary life in Africa are rare and this volume, with its Swahili words, specific setting and strong visuals, deserves the country name “Kenya” in its title. Some portion of the sales will aid the orphanage. (glossary) (Nonfiction. 5-9)