343 - All the Lion's Gold

All the Lion's Gold

is currently available in 2 editions:

English & Bambara (N'ko script)

Bambara (Latin & N'ko scripts)

Click on a cover to buy the book.

Waraba ka sanu bɛɛlajɛni

bɛ sɔrɔ sisan a bɔko 2 la:

Angilɛtɛri ani Bamanankan (N'ko sɛbɛnni)

Bamanankan (Latin ani N'ko sɛbɛnniw)

I ka gafe ɲɛ dɔ digi walisa ka gafe san.

Jessy's Reflection

I feel sorry for Zoe. She put so much effort into illustrating this story but I was far too tough on her. It was the first time I had hired an illustrator with preconceived ideas of what I wanted the book to look like. Before then, I'd pretty much given them all free reign to design whatever they liked. But for this story, I asked too much of an illustrator still finding her feet. What do you think of her pictures?

As for the story, I showed it to a friend who's a teacher. Neither her nor her daughters took to it. Had I taken greater liberties to mythologise the tale, instead of adhering so closely to history, it could have had a deeper impact. Yet the purpose of this book wasn't to impress anyone. It was meant to recap a few significant events in the history of North-West Africa in a nutshell. Its purpose was to give readers a starting point from which they could explore more. That's why it leaves so many questions unanswered.

The inclusion of the novel N'ko script was a side step. This was the first book in the series to be produced in a right-to-left script. That created its own challenges but it was also a good learning experince. To aid learners in Mali, another edition of this title exists in both the Latin script of Bambara and the N'ko script.

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