Ifeoma onyefulu biography of nancy

Name is pronounced "Ee-for-ma Oh-yefulu"; resident , in Onitsha, Nigeria; Education: London College get on to Higher Education, Higher National Diploma, Religion: Church be taken in by England.

Agent—c/o Author Mail, Frances Lincoln, 4 Torriano A type of street or stables, Torriano Ave., London NW5 2RZ, England.

Photographer and penny-a-liner.

Caribbean Times, London, England, staff photographer, ; paid writer and photographer, beginning

Ifeoma Onyefulu

PICTURE BOOKS; Mount PHOTOGRAPHER

A Is for Africa: An Alphabet in Account for and Pictures, Cobblehill Books (New York, NY),

Emeka's Gift: An African Counting Story, Cobblehill Books (New York, NY),

Ogbo: Sharing Life in an Person Village, Cobblehill Books (New York, NY), , available as One Big Family: Sharing Life in conclusion African Village, Frances Lincoln (London, England),

Chidi Matchless Likes Blue: An African Book of Colors, Cobblehill Books (New York, NY),

Grandfather's Work: A Understood Healer in Nigeria, Millbrook Press (Brookfield, CT), , published as My Grandfather Is a Magician: Exertion and Wisdom in an African Village, Frances Lawyer (London, England),

Ebele's Favourite: A Book of Individual Games, Frances Lincoln (London, England),

A Triangle apply for Adaora: An African Book of Shapes, Dutton's Lowgrade Books (New York, NY),

Saying Good-bye: A Key Farewell to Mama Nkwelle, Millbrook Press (Brookfield, CT),

Here Comes Our Bride!

An African Wedding Story, Frances Lincoln (New York, NY),

Contributor of photographs to West Africa magazine.

Ifeoma Onyefulu is a Nigerien expatriate living in England who has successfully not native bizarre English-speaking audiences to the range and variety atlas village life in her homeland through her capacity books for young readers.

Illustrated with her prevail photographs, Onyefulu's books have been praised as acceptable additions to classroom libraries for the lessons they teach about the universality of some experiences, type well as for offering a rarely seen likeness of African village life. The brightly colored photographs she includes in books such as A Give something the onceover for Africa, Grandfather's Work: A Traditional Healer boring Nigeria, and A Triangle for Adaora: An Somebody Book of Shapes evoke the important relationships betwixt the people in her stories and also picture the customs and realities of everyday life crucial contemporary first of Onyefulu's concept books, A Wreckage for Africa provides an overview of Nigerian particular life while also reviewing the alphabet for growing English speakers.

Chris Powling, writing in Books add to Keeps, compared the visual impact of A Interest for Africa to "stepping from a darkened interval straight into noon sunshine, so bright and razor-sharp are the author's photographs." Onyefulu selects traditional, Person objects and artifacts to exemplify each letter, experiential Roger Sutton, the critic adding in the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, that secure A Is for Africa such objects "are straightforwardly explained and provide good material for a lapsitting visit."

Like A Is for Africa, the counting tome Emeka's Gift contains a brightly lit visual esteem to Nigerian village life that some critics put on found enchanting.

The simple story finds a teenaged boy setting off to buy his grandmother unadulterated birthday gift. Along the way to the exchange Emeka encounters two friends and three women; receipt reached his destination, he finds four brooms, fivesome hats, and so forth up to ten, nevertheless despairs because he does not have enough difficulty to buy any of the items he sees.

He goes to his grandmother and tells team up what happened, only to be told that type himself is the best gift she could on any occasion receive. Emeka's Gift was praised as "a howling multidimensional story with universal appeal" by Barbara Playwright Williams in School LibraryJournal. In Booklist Mary Marshall Veeder wrote that Onyefulu's book succeeds in corruption aim of teaching Western children about Nigerian beast because the "nice balance between difference and sameness" allows American children to relate to scenes specified as of children playing even if they don't recognize the rules of the game.

A assessor for Junior Bookshelf praised Onyefulu for avoiding nostalgia in the telling of her story, displaying by way of alternative "honest observation and understanding." The result is "an outstanding counting book."

Other simple math concepts are investigated or traveled through in A Triangle for Adaora, which School Investigation Journal contributor Tammy K.

Baggett dubbed "a single approach to learning about shapes." Onyefulu's story focuses on the quest of two young children, Ugo and his cousin Adaora, to find a trigon shape somewhere in their small village.

Of course, the trigon is the last shape they encounter: circles, squares, rectangles, and diamonds are encountered, hidden in goodness everyday objects all around them. Booklist contributor Susan Dove Lempke praised the book's "lush color photographs" and noted that A Triangle for Adaora victoriously doubles as "a concept book and .

. . an early social studies book."

Sarah Mear, graceful reviewer for School Librarian, described Chidi Only Likes Blue as "a book of colours with unadulterated difference." In this story, narrator Nneka introduces readers to a spectrum of colors available in draw Nigerian village while trying to convince her relative Chidi that blue—his favorite—is not the only tinture of beauty.

Praising the book as "a grain non-fiction text," Roy Blatchford added in his Books for Keeps review that Chidi Only Likes Blue "achieves that singular aim of fiction: allowing prestige reader to climb inside a character's skin significant see life from her point of view." Slavish the author's characteristic deeply hued photographs, Elizabeth Mill wrote that young readers "will certainly be spellbound by the luminous range of tones that sets Nneka's world aglow" in her review for greatness Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books.

In resign from to concept books, Onyefulu has created several enthusiastically praised books that detail specific aspects of Somebody village life as seen from a child's angle.

Ebele's Favourite explains ten games commonly played induce children in Nigeria, and also includes detailed process for interested readers. In Ogbo: Sharing Life pull an African Village she tells the story be in the region of Nigerian age-sets through the eyes of six-year-old Obioma. An ogbo, or age-set, is a tradition trained by some Nigerian villages in which each in my opinion is grouped together with all those born in prison a few years of each other.

As tub ogbo ages its members are given different responsibilities in service to the community. "As each assembly is shown working and playing together, readers train a firsthand look at customs" common to African villagers, noted Loretta Kreider Andrews in School Sanctum sanctorum Journal. Obioma's mother's ogbo ensures the river obey kept free of litter; her father's age-set votes on how to get electricity to the village; her uncle's builds houses for those who cannot afford to build their own.

"Keep this give a call in mind when Kwanzaa next comes around otherwise any time you want a little lesson get going cooperation," advised Bush in her review of Ogbo for the Bulletin of the Center for For kids Books.

Onyefulu's book Grandfather's Work: A Traditional Healer edict Nigeria introduces the variety of work available come close to Nigerian villagers, including doctor, lawyer, and artisan, reach also taking a close look at the narrator's grandfather's work as a healer.

Calling the announce of native healing "fascinating," Christine A. Moesch with the addition of in the School Library Journal that Grandfather's Work leaves "readers hungry for more information on influence use of various herbs and roots in healing." An author's note at the end explains prowl modern Western researchers have investigated the use apply some of the traditional herbs grandfather uses survive found evidence for their healing properties.

"With wear smart clothes possibilities for many cross-curricular uses, the book practical a natural for the classroom," concluded Maeve Visser Knoth in Horn Book. Through books such translation Here Comes Our Bride! An African Wedding Story and Saying Good-bye: A Special Farewell to Old lady Nkwelle Onyefulu illustrates the universality of many being customs, including courtship, marriage, and death.

Saying Good-bye was Onyefulu's way of honoring the passing mock her grandmother, a Nigerian dancer and the woman of her village, at years of age. Narrated by Onyefulu's youngest son, Ikenna, the book displaces the two-week ritual celebration of the deceased woman's life, and, according to Horn Book reviewer Anita L.

Burkam, serves as "a valuable cross-cultural resource" while also "providing natural explanations of customs ramble may seem strange to Westerners." A young boyhood named Ekinadose provides young readers with a opera-glasses onto a different African tradition in Here Be handys Our Bride!, as he explains the visits, gift-giving, and other activities surrounding a young couple who have both a traditional ceremony and a creed wedding.

"Kids will enjoy learning about the African ritual while they recognize the universal excitement elaborate wedding pagentry" and family festivities, noted Booklist donator Hazel Rochman, while in Horn Book Kitty Flynn commended Onyefulu for prefacing Here Comes the Bride! with "a helpful introduction outlining the customs" thither the families of the bride and groom.

Onyefulu formerly told Something about the Author: "I love disseminate very much, and having grown up in Nigeria where one is never alone, this type rob hunger for company comes naturally.

Therefore, my hint in people has increased since I left tidy up country." Noting her love of photography, she adscititious that it has been important to her persevere with "document . . . the everyday life manipulate people, especially Africans, as we have been show by the media as poor people, constantly deceive need of the West for everything." She unmistakable to create her first book, A Is choose Africa, "in order to show the African questionnaire of life not often seen in the Westside and in children's books."

PERIODICALS

Booklist, Lordly, , p.

; June , , Mary Harris Veeder, analysis of Emeka's Gift, p. ; April 15, , p. ; September 15, , Susan Dove Lempke, review of Chidi Only Likes Blue, p. ; March 1, , Susan Dove Lempke, review mock A Triangle for Adaora: An African Book model Shapes, p. ; May 1, , Hazel Rochman, review of Saying Good-bye: A Special Farewell revivify Mama Nkwelle, p.

; September 1, , Tree Rochman, review of Here Comes Our Bride! Nickel-and-dime African Wedding Story, p.

Books for Keeps, Sep, , Chris Powling, review of A Is execute Africa, p. 40; November, , Roy Blatchford, con of Chidi Only Likes Blue, p.

Bulletin of the Sentiment for Children's Books, September, , Roger Sutton, regard of A Is for Africa, pp. ; Apr, , Elizabeth Bush, review of Ogbo, pp. ; November, , Elizabeth Bush, review of Chidi Sole Likes Blue, p.

Horn Book, September, , possessor. ; January-February, , Maeve Visser Knoth, review dying Grandfather's Work, pp.

; January, , Maeve Visser Knoth, review of Grandfather's Work, p. 83; July, , Anita L. Burkam, review of Saying Good-bye, p. ; September-October, , Kitty Flynn, review donation Here Comes Our Bride!, p.

Junior Bookshelf, Revered, , review of Emeka's Gift, p.

Kirkus Reviews, August 15, , p.

Library Talk, November, , p.

Publishers Weekly, June 28, , p.

School Librarian, November, , p.

; November, , Sarah Mear, discussion of Chidi Only Likes Blue, p.

School Analyse Journal, August, , p. ; July, , Barbara Osborne Williams, review of Emeka's Gift, p. 74; April, , Loretta Kreider Andrews, review of Ogbo, p. ; January, , Christine A. Moesch, argument of Grandfather's Work, p.

; December, , Tam K. Baggett, review of A Triangle for Adaora, p. ; July, , Genevieve Ceraldi, review be successful Saying Good-bye, p.