The National Museum of African Art website is a colorful destination that showcases a dynamic mixture of historical, traditional, and contemporary African art forms.

The museum and its website cover the entire continent of Africa, so the focus is not on children or youth. There are some valuable resources, but they finding them can be tricky.

Explore the Collection features three sample sub-collections showing the diversity, uses, and symbols of African art. An advanced search allows for sorting by type of object, country, ethnic group, and artist, but there is no keyword search for narrowing to "child" or "childhood." The search engine would be best for browsing by users with prior knowledge of the collection, or if a user wanted to search a particular region or type of artifact.

To locate material on children, explore categories such as "toys and entertainment" (18, including the image of the Zimbabwean toy turtle made from a gourd and woven fiber shown here); "doll" (12) ; "mother and child" (25); and "masks" (120). These bring up objects related to initiation and puberty rituals. "Costume and textile" (142) offers clothing types such as aprons and chest cloths associated with the passage to womanhood.

Unfortunately, many of the images are not very large, even expanded versions (when available). For smaller objects such as dolls, the images are quite detailed. For larger objects, such as clothing and weavings, the images do not allow the user to focus on the elements identified in the written descriptions. In addition, some of the texts are generic, repeating paragraphs for similar objects, such as dolls, game boards, ornaments, and clothing types.

Information and objects related to childhood, though difficult to find, are sprinkled throughout the site. For example, in the podcast and exhibit on the Tuareg, we learn that the highly refined traditions of leatherwork and silversmithing are being passed on to the next generation and are well received in the global marketplace. Other items include masks, aprons, dolls, costumes, and symbolic items that refer to the practice of initiation rites and clothing or ornaments associated with the transition from childhood to adulthood in various parts of Africa.

Radio Africa features an audio story for children, "The Leopard's Drum," and performance of a squirrel story by an Ethiopian musician. The exhibit TxtStyles/Fashioning Identity draws connections between traditional and modern clothing among African youth and how it has become part of the global youth style. Activities for children invite them to participate in discussion, try on virtual clothes, and view images of children in various forms of dress.

Museum activities for children offer records of children's art activities, especially workshops held for public and local schools. There are photo streams of children making masks, learning about textiles, colors, and symbols in African art, or interacting with the exhibits. Playtime has dynamic activities for learning how to make kente cloth, designing beaded decorations and motifs, and a virtual paper doll set on costume.

Another section worthy of note is the Warren M. Robbins Library of African Art, billed as the leading library on the subject in the United States. African Art on the Web leads to additional information on children and youth in museums and websites around the world.

Read.gov is a project of the Library of Congress (LOC) Center for the Book. It offers a cornucopia of approaches to reading and readers through a well-integrated interface.

The centerpiece is a set of 30 beautifully scanned, rare classics with a simple, elegant reading interface. Books are divided into categories for children (23), youth (6), and adults (3). Titles include an 1886 volume A Apple Pie, Mother Goose rhymes and Aesop's fables, and The Rocket Book from 1912 about a janitor's son whose rocket shoots up from an apartment basement through 20 floors.

The book Gobolinks, or Shadow-Pictures for Young and Old portrays ink blots. These images, created by dropping ink onto paper, folding it, and pressing the paper to squeeze ink into shapes, are then interpreted and illustrated with poems. Interpretations such as the washerwomen would give way to features from today's landscapes. An interesting activity would be to cover the poems and titles, interpret the images, and then compare things that have and have not changed.

Well known classics include The Story of the Three Little Pigs, the original 1900 version of The Wizard of Oz, a 1911 version of A Christmas Carol, several illustrated poems by Edgar Allen Poe, The Secret Garden, and a 1908 printing of Uncle Tom's Cabin for Children.

Another section offers 20 Author Webcasts, including Jane Goodall, Chinua Achebe, and Tiki Barber.

Meet the Authors invites youth to write Letters about Literature, a contest that seeks to connect students' lives with the work of authors. Children write letters explaining how a work of literature was meaningful to them and these letters and responses to the writing prompts reveal much about contemporary childhood.

Other resources related to children are River of Words environmental writing and the Poetry Out Loud recitation contests. National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped includes a special list of resources for children in Braille and audio book format.

The Exquisite Corpse is a feature based on a traditional parlor game in which storytellers respond to a prompt and writers contribute to a growing story line whose ending is wide open. The story is developing as a quest adventure featuring telepathic twins searching for their parents, who are apparently in need of rescue. A cast of characters appear and disappear to build a set of clues.

The Exquisite Corpse Adventure educational resource center includes access to the episodes, reading selections, discussion questions and activities, and a feature under construction called "Talk Art!" related to the illustrations. The discussion materials are as rich as the story is complex.

Students of children in history and the culture of childhood will find plenty to analyze here. The classic books are illustrative of bygone landscapes created primarily by adults for children. They reveal time-honored tales as well as dominant and alternative historical narratives. They are readable and revealing. A class assignment, for example, could start with the original Wonderful Wizard of Oz, compare it to the 1939 Hollywood version, and then examine changing illustrations through the 20th century as the book was reprinted time and again.

The content on Art and Life in Africa is primarily the work and scholarship of Christopher D. Roy, Professor of Art History at the University of Iowa. There are rich materials on children, although finding them requires some creative searching.

The site design is not as elegantly organized or aesthetically pleasing as the rich content warrants. There are many broken links, such as the one to the Stanley Collection database. The link to a teacher's forum is also broken. Links to other sites do function.

What the site lacks in quality, however, it makes up in quantity of information. This includes photographs and videos that illustrate the landscape, arts, craft production, and everyday life of a wide variety of groups in the region and more than 60 streaming videos of craft production, dancing, singing and mask performances.

The site includes most countries of sub-Saharan Africa, which are designated on the map in black lettering. A database lists the names of 107 "peoples" (as the site designates these ethnic, clan, or tribal groups) in Africa. Each name links to a chart with information, a map of the territory, and sometimes the multiple countries they inhabit.

Materials on children appear throughout the site, but are not easy to find. The design includes an ALA search engine found only at the bottom of the index page—not on the home page. There is no easy way to navigate among sections of the site. Keyword searches such as "child," "girl," and "boy" yield only two general links, so the search engine apparently excludes a lot of site content. The keyword "doll," for example, which is found in at least a dozen articles, photo captions, and artworks, only returned the main website link.

The best strategy, then, is to browse the site looking in likely places. The beautiful and interesting pictures make this rewarding time spent. Key Moments in Life describes the stages from birth to initiation, marriage, old age and death, including both males and females, using photographs and art. Each is discussed in a paragraph with citation information.

A streaming video shows uninitiated boys in Boni and Lollio making masks out of millet stalks in imitation of the adults' elaborate masks. They play music, weave elaborate masks, and clown for the camera; in the evening they take part in the procession and dance. Watching this video is as interesting for the skill and intensity the boys bring to the process, as for the other children, both boys and girls, who mill around at the performance.

Many of the other videos and photos allow the viewer to catch glimpses of babies wrapped onto their mother's backs and of children and youth participating in daily activities or special occasions. A number of articles by Roy include information about children, the best example being the article on Mossi dolls. The article describes wooden figurines carved by blacksmiths for little girls that simultaneously fulfill the function of babies (biiga) for young caregivers as well as adult female role models.

This project is testament to a lifetime of work among people for whom the scholar Roy had great affection, and into whose lives he was able to gather deep insight. The materials here are based on a CD-ROM of the same name that is available for purchase on the site, but increasingly the CD content is available online.

My beloved daughter, very dear little dove, you have already heard and attended to the words which your father has told you. They are precious words, and such as are rarely spoken or listened to, and which have proceeded from the bowels and heart, in which they were treasured up; and your beloved father well knows that you are his daughter, begotten of him, are his blood, and his flesh; and God our Lord knows that it is so. Although you are a woman, and are the image of your father, what more can I say to you than has already been said? What more can you hear than what you have heard from your lord and father, who has fully told you what it is becoming for you to do and to avoid. . . .

Nevertheless, that I may do towards you my whole duty, I will say to you some few words—The first thing that I earnestly charge upon you is, that you observe and do not forget what your father has now told you, since it is all very precious. . . . If God gives you life, with these same words will you teach your sons and daughters, if God shall give you them. The second thing that I desire to say to you is, that I love you much, that you are my dear daughter. Remember that nine months I bore you in my womb, that you were born and brought up in my arms. I placed you in your cradle, and in my lap, and with my milk I nursed you. . . .

Take care that your garments are such as are decent and proper; and observe that you do not adorn yourself with much finery, since this is a mark of vanity and of folly. As little becoming is it, that your dress shall be very mean, dirty, or ragged; since rags are a mark of the low, and of those who are held in contempt. Let your clothes be becoming and neat, that you may neither appear fantastic nor mean. When you speak, do not hurry your words from uneasiness, but speak deliberately and calmly. Do not raise your voice very high, nor speak very low, but in a moderate tone. Neither mince, when you speak, nor when you salute, nor speak through your nose; but let your words be proper, of a good sound, and your voice gentle. Do not be nice in the choice of your words. In walking, my daughter, see that you behave becomingly, neither going with haste, nor too slowly; since it is an evidence of being puffed up, to walk too slowly, and walking hastily causes a vicious habit of restlessness and instability. Therefore neither walk very fast, nor very slow; yet when it shall be necessary to go with haste, do so,—in this use your discretion. And when you may be obliged to jump over a pool of water, do it with decency, that you may neither appear clumsy nor light. When you are in the street, do not carry your head much inclined, or your body bent; nor as little go with your head very much raised; since it is a mark of ill breeding; walk erect, and with your head slightly inclined. Do not have your mouth covered, or your face, from shame, nor go looking like a near-sighted person, nor, on your way, make fantastic movements with your feet. Walk through the street quietly, and with propriety. Another thing that you must attend to, my daughter, is, that, when you are in the street, you do not go looking hither and thither, nor turning your head to look at this and that; walk neither looking at the skies, nor on the ground. . .

Download the full text of the document as pdf here.

O my son, O my youth, O boy, O servitor, listen, for our lord hath placed you here. And now, to you who are my son, who are my child, who are my precious necklace, who are my precious feather, who are my oldest, my second, my youngest son. I speak, I call out a word or two. Verily, now I form, I say, I reflect upon the word or two which I shall give thee of my motherhood, my fatherhood. I shall perform my obligation, lest tomorrow, the next day, our lord, . . . will have hidden us. Certainly no one enjoys the hard, the heavy. Certainly our living on earth is not assured. . .

Here is what thou art to do, what thou art to realize, that which. . . the old men, the old women…our forefathers, left as they departed. For they came to live on earth; for they came to live with others. And they came to occupy position and authority among the people. . . .

Behold still a word to finish my talk. Perhaps I shall deceive if I have hidden a word left by our forefathers as they departed, in order that you may dwell with others on earth, in order that you may be prudent in all things, in everything.

First: you are to be one who rises from sleep, one who holds vigil through the night. You are not to give yourself excessively to sleep, lest it will be said of you, lest you will be called a heavy sleeper, one who goes falling asleep, a constant sleeper, a dreamer. . . .

And second, you are to be prudent in your travels; peacefully, quietly, tranquilly, deliberately you are to go, to take the road, to travel. Do not throw your feet much, nor raise your feet high, nor go jumping, lest it be said of you, lest you be named fool, shameless. Neither are you to travel very slowly, nor to drag your feet, lest it be said of you that you are a dragger, you are a lout. . .

Also you are not to hang your head, not to incline your head much, not to stand up off balance, not to look sideways, not to look out of the corner of your eyes, lest it be said of you that you are an imbecile. . .

Third: you are to speak very slowly, very deliberately; you are not to speak hurriedly, not to pant, nor to squeak, lest it be said of you that you are a groaner, a gawker, a squeaker. . . .

Fourth: you are to pretend not to dwell on that which is done, that which is performed. Especially you are to depart from, to forsake evil. And you are not to peer at one, not to peer into one's face, not to stare at one...especially a woman. . .

Fifth: Guard, take care of your ears, of that which you hear. Do not gossip; let what is said remain as said. Ignore it. Pretend not to understand the words. If you cannot ignore it, respond not. And speak not; only listen; let what is said remain as said. . . .

Thus this is very necessary; you are to be prudent, O my precious son. Do not die somewhere in vice, do not die somewhere in vain. Take good heed, take care; see to it that your eyes are open.

Sixth: when you are summoned. . . you are to arise responding, to arise quickly. If you are to be sent as a messenger, you are to run, to be swift. If you are ordered to get something, you are to get it promptly. You are to travel swiftly, to travel bounding, in no wise sluggish; like the wind are you to go. . . .

Seventh: as you are to array yourself, as you are to clothe yourself, you are not to dress vainly, you are not to array yourself fantastically, you are not to place upon yourself the gaudy cape, the gaudy clothing, that which is embroidered. Neither are you to put on rags, tatters, an old loosely-woven cape. . . .

Thus are you to tie on your cape: do not tie it on so that you go tripping over it; neither are you to shorten your cape. Moderately are you to tie it on. Nor are you to expose your shoulder. . . place on you that which is always good, proper, all fine.

Eighth: Listen! Above all you are to be prudent in drink, in food. . . in this wise: when you are to eat, you are not to be hasty, not to be impetuous; you are not to take excessively nor to break up your tortillas. You are not to put a large amount in your mouth; you are not to swallow it un-chewed. You are not to gulp like a dog, when you are to eat food. . . .

And when you are ready to eat, you are to wash your hands, to wash your face, to wash your mouth. And if somewhere you are to eat with others, do not quickly seat yourself at the eating place with others. . . . And you, when you have eaten, once again are you to wash your hands, to wash your mouth, to clean your teeth.

In brief, these are the words as I give you. . . as many words lie guarded. . . Our forefathers, the old men, the old women, the white-haired ones, the white-headed ones, departed leaving them. The many words—O that you could later take them to heart!. . .

They went saying that on earth we travel, we live along a mountain peak. Over here there is an abyss, over there is an abyss. Wherever you are to deviate, wherever you are to go astray, there will you fall, there will you fall into the deep. . .

Download the full text of the document as pdf here.

And behold how began the life of the young boy. At first, while still a small boy, his hair was shorn. And when he was already ten years old, they then let a tuft of hair grown on the back of his head. And when he was fifteen years old, then the tuft of hair became long. [This was] when he had nowhere taken captives.

And if he took a captive with the help of others, —perchance doing so with the aid of two, or of three, or four, or of five, or of six, at which point came to an end [the reckoning] that a captive was taken with others' help—then the lock of hair was removed. And this was the division of their captive: in six parts it came. The first, who was the real captor, took his body and one of his thighs—the one with the right foot. And the second who took part [in the capture] took the left thigh. And the third took the right upper arm. The fifth took the right forearm. And as for the sixth, he took the left forearm.

And when the tuft on the back of his head was removed, he was shorn so that he was left [another] lock: his hair dress kept, on the right side, the hair hanging low, reaching the bottom of his ear; to one side [only] was is lock of hair set. When this [was done], he assumed another face, he appeared otherwise, so that it might be seen that he had made a captive with the help of others [and that] the tuft of hair on the back of his head had been removed.

And then his grandfather, or his beloved uncle, addressed him. He said to him: “My beloved grandson, the sun the lord of the earth, hath washed thy face. You have taken another face; and you have gone to throw yourself against the foe. Let them take you if, without profit, once more you take a captive with the aid of others. What would you be? Would you have a young girl's lock of hair? Take care lest you again take a captive with others' help. Cast yourself against our foes…

Goha had a son who was always worried about what people would think or say. The boy could never do anything because he was always afraid that people might think him foolish. Goha wanted to show his son that it was a waste of time to worry about the opinions of others. He therefore saddled his donkey and told his son that he was going to the neighboring village.

Goha got on his donkey and asked his son to walk behind him. On the way they passed by some people who pointed at Goha and said, "Look at that heartless man who rides his donkey and makes his son walk."

When he heard this, Goha got off the donkey and asked his son to get on, while he walked. Again they passed by some people who pointed at the boy and said, "Just look at the boy who has no manners or respect for the elderly — he rides the donkey and lets his old father walk."

Goha thought about this, so he decided that both he and his son should now ride the donkey. Again they passed by some people who pointed at the donkey carrying both Goha and his son. "What a cruel man that is!" they said. "He has no pity for his donkey and allows both himself and his son to ride it at the same time."

Again Goha gave some thought to what the people had said, so he and his son got off the back of the donkey and both walked behind it. This time, passing by some people, he heard them saying among themselves, "What a couple of fools those two are! Imagine walking when they have a donkey they could ride."

This time Goha was at a loss. Finally, after a lot of thought, he said to his son,"Come along, let's carry the donkey between us."

So they lifted up the donkey and began carrying it along the road. As they were staggering along, some people saw them and burst out laughing. "Look at those two madmen," they said, "carrying the donkey instead of riding on it!"

So they put the donkey down and Goha said to his son, "You must know, my son, that whatever you do in this life, you will never please everyone."