Author Jane Kurtz

Check out the website of children's author Jane Kurtz and learn all about her books, her childhood in Ethiopia, and her recent trip to the Middle East, Ethiopia, and the Arabia Gulf. According to her website,

Since 1994, Jane has published seventeen books: nonfiction books, professional books for teachers, picture books, and novels that draw on her own childhood memories of growing up in Ethiopia, on living through the Red River flood of 1997, on her great grandmother's adventures traveling the Oregon Trail, and on the minor crises of her children's lives--from a friendship gone sour to the grouchiness of a rainy day.

One of my favorite books by Kurtz is "Faraway Home." I also particularly enjoyed her picture books "Fire on the Mountain," Water Hole Waiting," and "Only A Pigeon," her novel "The Storyteller's Beads," and her narrative poems about the 1997 flood in "River Friendly, River Wild."

If there are examples of children's books that you feel are particularly effective in sharing cultures and traditions, please post their titles, authors, and a brief description on the About Children's Books Forum.