Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters by John Steptoe details the story of two very beautiful sisters in an African village. The sisters, named Manyara and Nyasha, were loved by everyone in their village – they were kind, beautiful, and cared for their father. However, Manyara was very unkind to her sister and would often verbally harass Nyasha when nobody else was around. Throughout the events of the book, we learn more about Manyara’s selfishness and Nyasha’s empathy as they embark on the journey to become the king’s wife. This was a story that I read in second grade and to this day, it still resonates with me. It is not necessarily because of the message. But mostly because of the representation it gave me. Even though I was not from a village, nor did I relate to the characters, I still felt more of a connection to that book than I felt to any other book I read that year. It was then, in the moment when I first read this book that I realized how much I loved to see my people and my culture represented in whatever type of media I was consuming. 

                   It was not only the setting that stood out to me but also the way it was written . To me, the book felt like a story your grandmother would tell you and your cousins on a random summer day on the porch. It would be one of those folktale stories passed down from generation to generation to teach children a lesson. This was one of the other reasons it stuck with me.  I felt like I was transported back to my grandmother’s house and she was animatedly telling us this story, her eyes widening and her hands moving faster than I have ever seen before. Throughout my time in second grade, I continued to be drawn to that book, choosing it whenever we had reading time and marveling at the story as if it were my first time reading it. In the story, there was a snake Nyasha took care of in the garden. The snake would keep her company whenever her sister was mean to her. As it turns out, the snake was the king who shapeshifted into the many people Manyara and Nyasha stumbled upon on their journey to the kingdom. These people were meant to test their kindness, openness. and empathy in order to choose who was best fit to become a queen. The element of a snake and a king somehow reminded me a lot of the stories I heard from my mom in passing. She would tell these stories to scare me but in reality, I was drawn to them. To me, the book almost served as an homage to the many different cultures in Africa.

                       During that time, when I read books including characters like me, their blackness was almost always at the forefront of the conflict. On top of that, whenever I read books with black characters, they were hardly ever African. If they were, I would have to guess that the books were most likely going to be about how the main character doesn’t know how to manage their hair, how a nine year old is struggling to get clean water for her family, or how a family is dealing with war and famine. Even though I understood the importance of those stories, I wished there were more that focused on the culture and not always the struggles we see every day on social media. In Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters, I would argue that the author was able to incorporate the settings, the culture, and the traditions. He highlights the characters’ identities but does not make it seem like their blackness was a constant source of conflict or hardship. Instead, he focuses on their individual personalities and goals . I appreciated how the book allowed for the characters to just be African, without the need to reduce them to the struggles they face in their environment. 

                 The book was also able to comfort me at a time when I was faced with a lot of uncertainty. I had just come to a new country, I stood out to a lot of my peers, and it was difficult for me to adapt to a lot of their colloquialisms. Thankfully, since I was young at the time, I did not struggle with the latter for too long. Despite this, I still stood out to many of my peers. This was mainly due to my identity as a dark skin African person. Unfortunately, I had to deal with a lot of ignorance not only from my peers, but also from teachers and parents. Reading Mufaro’s beautiful daughters provided me with comfort about my identity as dark skinned African while still giving me some much needed escapism at the time. It is what encourages me to buy books and toys like it for my younger family members. I know that at some point, they will go through what I went through to some degree, and I want Mufaro’s beautiful daughters to give them the same comfort it gave to me.