Image of the Week: Morning in Nigeria
© D. Yael Bernhard
This illustration shows a typical morning in the most populated country in Africa, and the seventh most populous in the world. Nigeria is a bustling modern nation, yet it still retains the indigenous character that colors the entire continent, from red-ochre soil to thatch-roofed huts to the brightly patterned fabrics worn by people everywhere. It didn't take much research to find the same goats and chickens, plastic mixing bowls and wooden mortars found all over Africa. I chose Nigeria as an underrepresented country that I wanted to introduce to young readers in my picture book While You Are Sleeping: A Lift-the-Flap Book of Time Around the World (Charlesbridge Publishing, 2011).
This was the fourth multicultural picture book I designed and illustrated, showing children all over the world according to a common theme. While You Are Sleeping imagines a single moment in time in nine different countries, each in a time zone displayed on the face of a clock that lifts as a flap. In A Ride On Mother's Back (featured in this newsletter last month), each spread features a baby or toddler being carried through the activities of daily life unique to each culture. In Happy New Year (featured in this newsletter on New Year's Eve), various customs for saying good-bye to the old year and bringing in the new are shown. In the Fiddle Is a Song (Chronicle Books, 2006) also visits different parts of the world, with each spread depicting creative potential as it unfolds in the natural and human world. My last multicultural picture book, Just Like Me, Climbing A Tree (Wisdom Tales Press, 2015) shows children climbing all different trees, each on a different continent, and includes biological and cultural facts about each tree.
A common thread in these multicultural books is the theme of "we're all the same, in all different ways" – celebrating both the commonality and the diversity of people around the world. In composing each scene, I tried to show the details of ordinary life that might not be familiar to American readers. A young boy in Brazil rises with the sun each morning not to catch a school bus, but to work in his father's fishing canoe on the Amazon River. A schoolgirl in England does chores not emptying a dishwasher but milking a goat. In the illustration shown above, a girl in Nigeria returns from shopping, not in a mall or ordered on the internet, but by carrying home provisions in a bowl on her head.
Under the circular flap on each page, another view of the featured child is shown. Here the girl is tying a cloth on her head, as only African women and girls can deftly do, yielding a sort of loosely elegant arrangement that even after several trips to West Africa, I could never quite duplicate. The fabrics in Africa offer a dizzying array of both clashing and harmonious colors, both structured and random patterns, ranging from tacky and bold to subtle and detailed. It was hard to choose one for this illustration. This girl could be living in abject poverty by American standards, but her dazzling outfit and friendly neighborhood shows a life rich in family and community. Like many developing countries, Nigeria is materially poor but spiritually and culturally rich.
I learned so much illustrating this book! It began as a way to teach kids about time zones, including a time zone map at the end of the book – but became so much more. The everyday details and lesser-known lifestyles of kids around the world are so interesting. I hope my readers learned something too, and gained a sense of what could be happening in the life of a child just like them in a faraway place – right at this very moment.
While You Are Sleeping went out of print several years ago, largely because the flaps are so expensive to print – but you can find used copies on Amazon or order it through your library.
A good week to all!
D Yael Bernhard