Why Do We Celebrate the Yam Festival?: A Fun, Educational, and Illustrated Holiday Book for Kids and

Celebrate the harvest with roasted yams, powerful drums, colorful clothing, dancing, and community gratitude!

Why do families wait for a respected leader to taste the first new yam? How can one crop carry stories, language, music, farming knowledge, and family pride? Why Do We Celebrate the Yam Festival? introduces young readers to an Igbo New Yam celebration in Nigeria while recognizing that West African yam festivals differ from community to community.

Among Igbo people, the celebration is often called Iwa Ji (the eating of the new yam). It marks the end of one farming season and the hopeful beginning of another after months of difficult work.

Here is what you will discover inside:
- From Field to Festival: Follow farmers as they plant, tend, dig, clean, roast, boil, and prepare the treasured crop after a long growing season.
- The First Ceremonial Taste: Watch a traditional ruler, chief, or respected elder slice the first roasted yam, dip it in palm oil, and open the feast for everyone.
- History, Belief, and Gratitude: Learn about traditional connections with Ahiajoku, yams, and farming, along with modern prayers of thanks to God and remembrance of ancestors.
- Clothing with Cultural Pride: Discover men's Isiagu lion-head shirts, coral-style beads, women's wrapped skirts, and beautifully tied ichafu head coverings.
- A Delicious Feast: Explore roasted yam, stretchy pounded yam, rich palm oil, and egusi soup made with ground melon seeds, vegetables, and meat.
- Drums, Flutes, and Masquerades: Hear the ekwe slit drum and oja flute, then meet Mmanwu masqueraders whose masks, raffia clothing, and dances connect with ancestral traditions.
- Visual Delight: Enjoy beautiful, minimalist colorful illustrations filled with yam mounds, cooking fires, patterned clothing, musicians, masquerades, dancers, and wrestling matches.
- Tradition Across the World: Visit Igbo communities in London, New York, Houston, and elsewhere as children learn language, songs, foods, and family stories far from ancestral farms.

Perfect for families, classrooms, homeschoolers, and young cultural explorers, this book celebrates hard work, gratitude, food, identity, and the joy of sharing a new harvest.

Grab your copy today and join the New Yam celebration!