Our Secret, Siri Aang

by Cristina Kessler
Young Adult
2004 ASPCA Henry Bergh Young Adult Award

Imagine you’re a 12-year-old girl living in a Maasai village in Africa. Life would be very different. You would speak the Maa language and your daily chores might include fetching water for your family and searching the African bush for firewood. Around your neck would hang a necklace made of red, blue, green and white beads, symbolizing the things most important to your tribe—blood, sky, good pastures and milk. Namelok is living just this sort of life when something very special and secret happens—while out searching for firewood, she finds a mother black rhino and her tiny baby hidden in the bush. At a special naming ceremony, she decides to call the baby Siri Aang, which means “our secret,” and visits the mother and child as often as she can. But soon it will be time for her to become initiated into womanhood, and she will not be able to sneak away to visit the rhinos after that.

Meet the Author: Cristina Kessler
It’s no secret that this author’s favorite continent is Africa—all of her kids’ books take place there. Cristina Kessler knew as a little girl that she wanted be a writer and traveler, and lived in many places in Africa for 19 years, meeting people of many different cultures and seeing amazing wildlife and landscapes. "All of my books are based on places I have lived and experiences I have seen or had," she says—and considering her exciting life, she has a lot to write about. Kessler has visited 104 countries and learned seven languages along the way. She and her husband, Joe, have worked and traveled together, finding new stories to write about in Africa as well as Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.

You can learn more about Kessler’s travels and books at her website.

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