SALAH OF SIERRA LEONE

Salah, son of an army sergeant in Sierra Leone and newly arrived in Freetown shortly before the 1967 elections, is befriended by a Creole boy and his family and thereafter faces conflicting loyalties in an atmosphere filled with them. Should loyalty to his Mende tribe and the Poro society overshadow all considerations of honest elections and friends, whatever group they belong to? Salah is a likable boy, and his solution to his problems acceptably realistic given his circumstances. The authenticity of the author's background information is unquestionable, since she has lived in Sierra Leone and wrote The Land and People of Sierra Leone (1974); however, as in her Bisha of Burundi (1973) the overall result is a conventional, unexciting story most likely to appeal to students doing supplemental reading for a school assignment.