The Voice of Mom blog
Monday, December 1 200812.1.08
Looking for Miza is a new release from Scholastic, and is the true story of a young gorilla that escapes from the safety of her family along with her mother. The folks at WildlifeDirect started the Looking for Miza project to accomplish three goals:
1. To raise awareness. This book is currently in English and will be translated into a number of languages including native languages in Africa where it will be distributed. The Scholastic Junior corp of journalists from Rwanda will be helping to deliver messages across East and Central Africa and to the rest of the world through the Scholastic website.
2. To help people get involved in Gorilla conservation. Wildlife Direct saw how this can work in New York on Friday when children in in the USA and globally were involved in the launch of the book and submitted hundreds of ideas to the website. Scholastic will continue to provide opportunities for involvement through their website.
3. WildlifeDirect also aimed to raise funds for Gorilla conservation and already US$ 150,000 has been set aside to support rangers in the Virunga National Park from the Owen and Mzee Foundation. This should help to support many rangers over a one year period.
The GOOD: The story follows Miza and she somehow gets separated from her family. A bittersweet tale, the book brings to life what the day-to-day routines of the gorillas are, their own daily plight and struggle to survive and how they rally together to help one of their own. Gorgeous color photos throughout from photographer Peter Greste, it is a captivating story about the gorillas and the Congolese mountain rangers who work tirelessly to protect their survival. Beyond just a wonderful children’s story, this goes far past that. “Scholastic, the global children’s publishing, education and media company, will launch an in-school, standards-based educational initiative that will make elementary and middle school children, teachers and parents aware of the mountain gorilla crisis and the mission to save them. A specially developed curriculum and online portal produced by Scholastic will be distributed to approximately one million students to teach them about the gorillas, their habitat and the Mountain Rangers, and will empower them to become advocates for the gorillas. In addition, www.Miza.com, created jointly by Turtle Pond and Scholastic, will offer students up-to-date information on the gorillas brought from Wildlife Direct’s field-based blogs written by the Mountain Rangers and other activities and resources. Students will be encouraged to share ideas about helping the gorillas.”
The BAD: Absolutely nothing.
MONEY MATTERS: Looking for Miza retails for $16.99 and can be purchased from your favorite local bookstore or online at Amazon.
The MOM VERDICT
Cate says: Some of the verbiage in the story was a little beyond my 6-year-old son’s vocabulary, so as I was reading the story, I changed some of the words so he could more easily relate. From the second page, he sat glued to my side, drawn in by both the story and the pictures of Miza and her family. Rarely does he sit that enraptured, and it served as the springboard for many questions once we were done. He was so interested in Miza’s story, we’re going to go backward and pick up How One Little Polar Bear Captivated the World (Knut) next, by the same authors and, again, based on a true story. Two enthusiastic thumbs up.
Sarah says: For my three-year-old, this story was just too difficult. But when he gets older, this is something we will definitely revisit. The story is compelling and is a great look at the strength of family bonds — whether between human families or animal families.