Synopses & Reviews
Born in 1787, Shaka was just a boy when he and his mother were banished from their tiny Zulu clan, one among many clans that dotted the hillsides of southern Africa. By sheer will and military genius Shaka rose to lead a mighty nation, but he never forgot his outcast childhood.
In this companion to Diane Stanley's lauded Peter the Great, the authors have researched African history to evoke the dramatic events of Shaka!s time. Shaka dreamed of becoming a warrior, and he proved himself again and again--against a springing leopard, in one-on-one combat with a fearsome opponent, and as a general in battle.
Most amazingly, Shaka took a handful of Zulu fighters and turned them into an army of the finest warriors in Africa, awesome in its power, endurance, and discipline. By the time Europeans came to Zululand in 1824, they were told that this land they hoped to colonize belonged to a great king named Shaka, whose power was beyond measure.
Today Shaka lives on, in the stories of the six million Zulus of South Africa who remember him with pride, and in books written by the Europeans who knew and respected him. Shaka, King of the Zulus is a thoughtful, clearly written, and brilliantly illustrated biography of an extraordinary nineteenth-century ruler."Stanley presents the life story of Shaka, a Zulu military genius who became king of his people in the eighteenth century....The illustrations are full-color paintings that convey a quiet intensity in their portrayal of Shaka and his people."--Booklist
About the Author
Diane Stanley is the recipient of the Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children, and the 2000
Washington Post/Children's Book Guild Nonfiction Award for the body of her work. "There is no one like Diane Stanley...for picture-book biography -- she brings to the genre an uncanny ability to clarify and compress dense and tricky historical matter, scrupulous attention to visual and verbal nuances, and a self-fulfilling faith in her readers' intelligence"
(Publishers Weekly). Diane Stanley and her husband, Peter Vennema, have worked together on other books in Diane's award-winning biography series, including
Shaka: King Of The Zulus, Bard Of Avon: The Story Of William Shakespeare, and
Charles Dickens: The Man Who Had Great Expectations.
Diane has also illustrated The Last Princess: The Story Of Princess Ka'iulani Of Hawaii, by Fay Stanley, and she has written and illustrated Michelangelo, Peter The Great, Joan Of Arc, Leonardo Da Vinci, Cleopatra and Rumpelstiltskin's Daughter. Her first novel, A Time Apart, was selected as one of 1999's Top 10 First Novels by ALA Booklist. Diane Stanley and Peter Vennema live in Houston, Texas.