The Night Before Kwanzaa (Night Before)

by Natasha Wing (Author) Amy Wummer (Illustrator)

Reading Level: 2nd − 3rd Grade
Series: Night Before

Learn all about Kwanzaa in this holiday addition to the Night Before series.

It's the night before Kwanzaa, and a little boy is excited to spend it with his family. Every evening, they light a candle, learn about their history, and more! Celebrate Kwanzaa in this installment of the Night Before series, told in the style of Clement C. Moore's classic tale.

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School Library Journal

K-Gr 3--The latest installment in the "The Night Before" series, which deals with holidays and common experiences in children's lives, this time focuses on Kwanzaa. A young boy is excited because his grandmother is visiting for Kwanzaa. With her and the rest of the family, the boy takes readers through the holiday. Each page tells the meaning of a different object, food, or tradition used during the celebration. The text provides the Swahili word and pronunciation of each candle in the kinara, and then describes the meaning. The material is accurate and well-constructed, but there is nothing special or unique that creates any excitement. All the books in the series use the same style of illustrations, which is unfortunate when considering the diversity of the topics. VERDICT This book will not inspire curiosity about Kwanzaa, nor does it have characters or a story that children will connect with.--Peggy Henderson Murphy

Copyright 2023 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Natasha Wing
Natasha Wing (www.natashawing.com) lives in Fort Collins, Colorado. Her first book in the Night Before series, The Night Before Easter, was published in 1999.

Nathalie is a freelance illustrator living in Argentina.
Classification
Fiction
ISBN-13
9780593519752
Lexile Measure
570
Guided Reading Level
-
Publisher
Grosset & Dunlap
Publication date
October 17, 2023
Series
Night Before
BISAC categories
JUV070000 - Juvenile Fiction | Poetry (see also Stories in Verse)
JUV017050 - Juvenile Fiction | Holidays & Celebrations | Kwanzaa
Library of Congress categories
African Americans
Picture books
Stories in rhyme
Family life
Kwanzaa

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