Hooray for Anna Hibiscus by Atinuke

Rating: My bookshelf

Reading Level: Early Elementary

Anna’s mother is Canadian and her father is African. She and her mother have adventures as they join African culture and community. That said, some families may not like it; I’ve tried to capture possible concerns so you can decide.

Possible Concerns:

• Not liking school. Anna initially is not excited to go to school. When she gets a singing gig, she is happier and comments about how she doesn’t need to do math anymore at school.
• Curly Black Hair. Anna doesn’t like getting her curly black hair braided, and when her family lets her have her way, it ends up in horrible knots. At one point she says, “I hate my hair!” Perhaps this would be sensitive for some readers who struggle with the same issue; perhaps it would be therapeutic to have someone understand the struggle!
• Poverty and pain. Anna thinks it would be fun to go to the part of town with a lot of poor people. She ends up stripping herself nearly naked giving away her clothes to kids who don’t have what she has.
• Brief reference to luck. A grandparent suggest Anna should be allowed to go to the poor side of town so that she can “see how lucky she is.”

Things I liked:

• The family honors God and occasionally points to Him and His work in creation. There are a few “God bless you” comments near the end when Anna shares with the poor.
• The family is mindful of poverty and cares for the poor.
• I like that my kids see into a different culture.
• I like that Anna’s parents come from different continents and they model a healthy mixed-race family.
• I like that the family chose not to replace technology so that they could have more quality time together.

I think for me the good outweighed the bad. See also my reviews of other books in the Anna Hibiscus series.