20 Zimbabwe – The tale of Tamari – Shimmer Chinodya – February 2015 (Score 6.85)

I have to admit to a mistake when I selected this book as one of the options which I put to the group for February 2015. Although I knew that Chinodya also writes books for children, I did not pick up from the Amazon information that this is one of them.

It is very short (just over 50 pages) and written in a much simpler style than we have previously found when we read Chinodya. It is a simple story, written in plain, straightforward English in short sentences, and not at all challenging for experienced adult readers.

I think it probably meets the needs of its target audience very well, and I believe that it would encourage young readers to keep on reading, and possibly to move on to Chinodya’s more challenging books, and other authors, from Africa and elsewhere. We enjoy our “World Reading” and hope others do to.

I read the book in a couple of hours (certainly not skimming). I treated it with the serious consideration due to any of our selections, and in fact to all serious and not-so-serious literature.

With all the above in mind, and thinking how well it met its purpose, I scored it at 8.0.