★ “This simple story of discovery, sport, and friendship is filled with likable characters and innocently joyful moments...Delightful.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review Kenyan orphans, Kitoo and Nigosi, spend their days studying, playing soccer, helping their elders with chores around the orphanage and reading from the limited selection of books in their library. When the librarian gives Kitoo a copy of Sports Around the World he becomes fascinated by an image of the Canadian national men's ice hockey team. Then one day the fates align and Kitoo finds a pair of beat up old roller blades, he teaches himself to skate and dreams of one day playing hockey like the men in his book. But you can’t play ice hockey in Kenya, can you?

This book tells the story of George Monbiot's journeys among some of the tribal peoples of East Africa, showing how they are confronting the forces which threaten them. In northern Kenya he saw how bandits, equipped by the corrupt governments of both Kenya itself and some of its neighbours, have been massacring the nomads, driving the survivors into famine zones where first the cattle then the humans die. Further south he watched the open savannahs on which the nomads rely being divided up and reduced by ploughing. But he also saw that the nomads of East Africa are finding ways to survive. All nomads are opportunists, and the adaptability, the cultural flexibility that opportunism demands means that they are possibly better equipped than any other of the world's traditional peoples to withstand dramatic change.

Pheroze Nowrojee's family came to Kenya in 1896 to work on the railway. In rich, layered prose, this book examines how that voyage from India became a Kenyan journey, how the railway became the family's own journey as Kenyans. Against this backdrop of the family's story, the book reflects on Kenya's history over the last hundred years and the chequered Asian African story within it. The family story interweaves with the country's major events, including the building of the Uganda Railway with indentured labour from India, the First World War in Kenya, the Emergency, independence, and the 1982 coup attempt, to result in a book that offers fresh insights into the national story.

Washington introduces his best friends from school to his father whose shocking and harsh but eventually prescient response to the introduction reveals a post-independent Kenyan society that is markedly different from the one the son has hitherto shared with the friends. The father's brutal honesty leaves an indelible mark on the little boy's psyche and sets Washington off on a long and oftentimes arduous journey that takes him from the rural, familiar and safe albeit hardy surroundings of Apondo, Nyanza, Kenya to the sandy beaches of San Diego, Southern California, finally settling him in the world-famous climes of Silicon Valley, Northern California. Washington repeats a journey first undertaken by thousands in the 1700s: A journey that became an annual ritual for millions thereafter; all in their pursuit of their dream; their American Dream....

In this warm and honest memoir, celebrated academic Njoki Wane shares her journey from her parents' small coffee farm in Kenya, where she helped her mother in the fields as a child, to her current work as a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. Moving smoothly between time and place, Wane uses memories, painful and tender, to show how her early lessons and the support given by her family allowed her to succeed as a woman of colour in the academy, and to later lift up her students facing their own difficult journeys.

Elliot Fratkin shares the story of his early anthropological fieldwork in Kenya in the 1970s. Using his fieldnotes and letters home to bring to life the voices of those he met, Fratkin invites the reader to experience his cross-cultural friendships with the enigmatic laibon (a diviner and healer of the Samburu and Maasai peoples) Lonyoki, his family, and the people of the nomadic community of Lukumai. Fratkin participated in the daily lives of the Ariaal livestock herders and accompanied the laibon as he performed divination and healing rituals throughout Marsabit and Samburu Districts. After Fratkin reunited Lonyoki with his son and wife, Lonyoki adopted Fratkin into his family, and Fratkin continues his close friendship with Lonyoki’s son Lembalen today. Black-and-white photographs, a guide to the characters, words, and places, and a list of suggested readings supplement the engaging narrative. Laibon is more than a memoir; it delves into nitty-gritty details of fieldwork, speaks to larger questions about ethnographic research, and provides unparalleled insight into the world of the laibon.

Set in both the wilds and slums of Kenya, a powerful story about a brother and sister's brave journey to find a place to call home. 13-year-old Muchoki and his younger sister, Jata, can barely recognize what's become of their lives. Only weeks ago they lived in a bustling Kenyan village, going to school, playing soccer with friends, and helping at their parents' store. But sudden political violence has killed their father and destroyed their home. Now, Muchoki, Jata, and their ailing mother live in a tent in an overcrowded refugee camp. By day, they try to fend off hunger and boredom. By night, their fears about the future are harder to keep at bay. Driven by both hope and desperation, Muchoki and Jata set off on what seems like an impossible journey: to walk hundreds of kilometers to find their last remaining family.

What does it feel like to move through a world designed to limit and exclude you? What are the joys and pains of holidays for people of colour, when guidebooks are never written with them in mind? How are black lives today impacted by the othering legacy of colonial cultures and policies? What can travel tell us about our sense of self, of home, of belonging and identity? Why has the world order become hostile to human mobility, as old as humanity itself, when more people are on the move than ever? Nanjala Nyabola is constantly exploring the world, working with migrants and confronting complex realities challenging common assumptions - both hers and others'. From Nepal to Botswana, Sicily to Haiti, New York to Nairobi, her sharp, humane essays ask tough questions and offer surprising, deeply shocking and sometimes funny answers. It is time we saw the world through her eyes.