In a Cloud of Dust and Bicycle Recycling

Well summer is passing by quicker than I anticipated.  I have to start thinking about back to school shopping already.  What I don’t have to worry about is how my children get to school.  We live maybe a 10 minute walk from the school.  What I loved about our latest treasure we found at the library is that I could talk to my kids about their experiences of school and how it might compare to the African children in the book.  In A Cloud of Dust is our latest treasure discovered at our local Edmonton Public Library.

In a Cloud of Dust by Alma Fullerton and art by Brian Deines is a new 2015 release from Pajama Press.  This is a story of Anna, a girl in a Tanzanian village, and her schoolmates and what happens when the Bicycle Library truck rolls up to deliver bikes to the school children.   Anna, like many children in Africa, must walk for hours to and from school.  When Anna arrives back home at night it is already dark outside so she must stay during breaks to complete her schoolwork.  On this day, she is working while some of her classmates are playing a football game.  The football game is interrupted by the Bicycle Library Truck.  Anna doesn’t make it outside in time to choose a bike.  Instead, Anna decides to help her friends out on their bikes.  She helps them balance, runs along side of them and encourages them when they fall.  On the walk home she does not have a bike but her walk seems to go a lot faster.  One of her friends gives her his bike in the end knowing that she has farther to travel than he and she promises to pick him up the next morning with the bike.  In a Cloud of Dust is an uplifting story that will give its readers a glimpse into life in an African village from the eyes of children and it will introduce the importance of the Bicycle Libraries popping up across Africa and bicycle recycling.  I would definitely recommend this book to schools and teachers as it would compliment a unit on Good Citizenship or Reusing/Recycling.

Where did those bicycles come from?  The bicycles have been arriving in Africa since 2005 when Pat and Brenda Montani began their grassroots movement Bicycles for Humanity collecting bicycles in a container and shipping them to a village in Namibia from communities around central British Columbia.  Since then the movement has grown into 50 chapters in over 8 countries sending over 100,000 bicycles to Africa.  I loved this video done by B4H Colorado showing where in the world the bikes are going and talking about their greater impact in the communities.  My children were in awe of how many bikes were being collected and where they were being transported.  This video definitely help them understand the impact of recycling their bicycles.