I got a great new book in the mail today and I cannot wait to tell you about it. My kids cannot wait for me to tell you about it either as I won’t let them color in it until I get pictures of it! Needless to say this review is being written today and not tommorow! Explore Ethiopia: A Coloring Book by Stacy Bellward and illistrated by Danette Malerich, is a fun, educational and affordable book to add to any child’s library, but especially to the library of an Ethiopian family or adoptive family.
The activities are as easy as coloring a picture of an Ethiopian woman carrying water and as advanced as learning Amharic words and vocabulary. Being very functional the front, inner cover gives a pronunciation guide to help learn the words correctly. I need this as do my Ethiopian daughters, since they have lost their language skills for Amharic.
The pictures and simple explainations cover Ethiopian history, Orthodox Christianity, native animals and the amazing archcheture found in Lalibella and Gondor. Word puzzles and drawing activities make this great for the older kids while still interesting for the younger ones. My four year old immediately pointed out Ethiopia on the first page featuring an African map and the question: Where is Ethiopia? She also ran into our den and pulled out our copy of Tsion’s Life and pointed out that they were from the same store.
Mita and Enu were more calm about things, but pleasantly pleased. I found Enu saying the vocabuary words in Amharic and trying to remember how to say things and Mita learning that the first African Gold Medal was won by an Ethiopian runner. Meg is at camp this week, but no doubt will enjoy this book as she has a pretty good Ethiopian vocabulary for a nine year old girl from Ohio!
As I have shared before, I am heartbroken that the girls no longer can speak Amharic. I was so certain they could retain some of their langage by speaking to eachother, but they were still young at six and eight and they worked so hard on their English that they spoke to eachother in English after only a few weeks.
Products like this one, helps me keep Ethiopia and the Amharic language in our house and we can use them often to help us retain the beautiful culture where two of my kids are from. I am greatful to AmharicKids.com for having these products and very happy they are able to offer three (3) copies of Explore Ethiopia: A Coloring Book to our readers!
Our giveaway will run through July 15th.
We’re offering you a few different ways to enter this giveaway. Read how!
1. Leave a comment on this post with a tip about keeping your child’s heritage and culture a priority in your home. You may leave one comment on the blog. (Registration is required to comment.)
2. Blog about this giveaway on your own public blog, linking to this giveaway post. If you choose to do this as well, please leave a comment on this post with the link to your post (can be done in addition to the above comment) so that we know you have blogged about this giveaway.
3. Follow @AdoptionBlogs on twitter. Leave a comment here so that we can confirm you’re a new follower!
This giveaway will be live through Wednesday, July 15, 2009 at 12:00pm EDT. At that time, we will finish adding last minute entries to the spreadsheet, visit random.org to pull three separate winners (meaning, you can’t win all three books) and work to contact them in short order.
If you have any questions about how to enter the giveaway or want some more information about the book, please don’t hesitate to contact me at MandyW@adoptionblogs.com.
Good Luck!
Photo Credit Stephan Ehl
I went to Ethiopia with my daughter and son-in-law when they adopted two girls from Ethiopia. While there I bought many baskets, shawls and clothes that I use and have in my home. The kids like to see a bit of Ethiopia at Grandma’s house.
We have just accepted a referral for placement of two ethiopian children, siblings and are excited to learn more about Ethiopia.
When our child comes home from Ethiopia, we plan to eat one Ethiopian meal a week and on our Ethiopian placemats too!
It would be great to win that book! So here’s what we’ve been doing lately (We’re home just short of 3 weeks).
We cook at least ONE dish for our dinner that is Ethiopian. So tonight we had steamed veggies, pasta, tomato sauce AND miser wat (not too bad over pasta!) Oh, and some of the bread was garlic bread, but some was butter with shiro powder sprinkled onto it. Not “traditional,” but the kids liked it!
I love hearing all these ideas. We have one adoption complete and waiting for the second to follow. We are adopting nonsibling girls, 7 and 9 years old. Our family feels like we can make the girls feel most at home by cooking Ethiopian food and knowing some of the language. It sounds like we’re on track.
We frequent the Ethiopian restaurants in our area as well as belong to an Ethiopian culture group. I also cook Ethiopian food at least one every two weeks sometimes more often. We display artwork and from Ethiopia as well.
We bought several things while in Ethiopia that we are saving to give one at each birthday for a while. We also bought linens that we will use as he gets older for birthdays, ETH Christmas, and ETH New Year celebrations.
I just started following you on twitter. I would love to be entered for the drawing. Thanks!
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