The archive at dusk
Amara discovers that a manuscript family in Timbuktu has been protecting scrolls for six centuries — and that one of them is missing.
New book · Volume 1 available now
Amara the Archivist
The Lost Scrolls of Timbuktu — Volume 1
Amara is a young archivist with a leather jacket, a satchel of notebooks, and a stubborn refusal to accept that African history was never written down. Her first investigation takes her to Timbuktu, where hundreds of thousands of manuscripts — on astronomy, law, medicine, and poetry — have been guarded by families for generations. One scroll is missing, and the trail runs straight through the great kingdoms of Africa.
Written by Paulette Mpouma, creator of The Africa Memory Game™, this illustrated adventure blends detective storytelling with real archival history so young readers learn to ask the questions historians ask.
$28.50Available now
- Author
- Paulette Mpouma
- Series
- Amara the Archivist — Volume 1
- Reading age
- 9–14 years (great read-aloud for ages 7+)
- Format
- Illustrated hardcover
- Language
- English
- Themes
- African history, archives, geography, critical thinking
- Price
- $28.50
- Availability
- Available now
Inside the book
Reading the desert
Salt caravans, trade routes, and the mathematics of navigation. Readers learn how knowledge travelled across the Sahara long before printing presses.
The scholars of Sankoré
Inside one of the world's oldest centres of learning, Amara meets the historians, astronomers, and jurists whose work filled the libraries of Mali.
What an archivist really does
Handling, dating, and verifying sources — the investigative skills Amara uses become the reader's own toolkit.
For educators & homeschoolers
What readers learn
- ◆Locate Timbuktu, Mali, and the Sahara trade routes on a map of Africa
- ◆Explain why written manuscripts matter as historical evidence
- ◆Describe the role of the Sankoré and Djinguereber centres of learning
- ◆Practise source evaluation: who wrote it, when, and why
- ◆Connect West African scholarship to global history of science
Pair it with the game
Amara's investigations map directly onto the countries, landmarks, and figures in The Africa Memory Game™ — read a chapter, then play the matching round.