Listening For Lions

I started the book Listening for Lions by Gloria Whelan this week ! The beginning of Listening for Lions takes place in 1919 in British East Africa. Rachel Sheridan is thirteen years old and her father and mother work in a mission hospital called Tumaini. In Tumaini, her father works as a doctor and her mother works as a teacher. Rachel has lived in Africa her whole life and when she was little, she would be watched by Kanoro. A terrible influenza hits the nearby city of Nairobi and soon makes its way over to the Kikuyu and Masai shambas, or farms. The mission hospital is open to all the Kikuyu and Masai people. Rachel is forced to stay away from the hospital so she doesn’t catch the influenza. The influenza is hitting almost everyone, including Rachel’s mother and father, who both die from it. Rachel is left an orphan and the hospital, Tumaini, closes.
I learned a lot about Africa in this book. I realized that Africa is very diverse. There was a rich British family, the Pritchards, living next to poor Kikuyu shambas. In one city, like Nairobi, there will be a nice hospital. In the next town, there will be a crowded mission hospital getting help from almost anyone they could. I also learned that back then in Africa, no one wanted a female doctor. Many people were surprised when Rachel wanted to be a doctor. They didn’t think she could do it. Another thing I learned is that even though Africa has its problems, you get attached to it. Rachel saw horrific, injured people who were beaten come into her father’s hospital, but she still loved Africa. Rachel wanted to stay there her whole life. Africa has so much violence, poverty, sickness, and war, but so many people are still proud to call it home.
I would recommend Listening for Lions to others because it is a very real example of how Africa is. This book shows how a person actually felt living in Africa and what they loved and hated about it. It shows how different it is from the U.S and England, and how similar it is too. It’s a taste of what things really are like there.