Yatandou book review by Jieming

Title of the Book: Yatandou 

Author Name: Gloria Whelan 

Reviewer's Name: Jieming 

Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press 

Date of Publication: 2007 

 Rating: 1-5 Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Yatandou is a picture book primarily revolving around the daily life of the titular character, though it also shows a subplot of the village she lives in slowly modernizing and adopting technology from the outside world. It starts with her talking about her daily life, and depicts scenes of her with her goat Sunjata, who is named after a Mali ruler from the past. Her mother, father, and brother perform certain tasks. Later on, Yatandou joins her mother and her grandmother in grinding millet to make meal, which would then be used to feed her family or be sold to the market. She also aids in making onion balls. Then, she walks to the market with her family and sells the items, and also has a sorrowful parting with Sunjata as she sells him to a woman after she promises not to eat him. This earns the village enough money to buy a millet grinding mechanism. This renders her grinding stick essentially useless, but she still cherishes it, writing her name down and intending to pass it down to future generations. 

A detailed theme of this picture book is the fact that even when the outside world is changing, some traditions from the past are still worth valuing. This is shown when Yatandou keeps the grinding stick even after the millet grinding contraption is bought, making the process of making meal much more simple and less time-consuming. The pictures also aid in conveying emotion. The images are slightly blurred, adding a sensation of heat haze which could be present in the village, and also adds to the simplicity of the story. Overall, the story is quite decent - the only criticism of it is that it a more simple story. However, as it is targeted toward readers similar in age to the main character of the story, this is not necessarily a negative fact of the story.