My Father's Shop

by Satomi Ichikawa

Mustafa is not all that eager to learn about his family’s work selling carpets... read more

Mustafa is not all that eager to learn about his family’s work selling carpets in the Moroccan city where he lives. He’d much rather play. As his father tries to teach him a few phrases in the foreign languages that are important to their business, a bored Mustafa makes his escape, bedecked in a colorful rug that has been damaged and can’t be sold. He attracts the attention of other vendors in the marketplace, as well as a brightly feathered rooster. “Kho Kho Hou Houuuu!” calls Mustafa, the sounds for a rooster’s crow in Morocco. One by one, tourists from other countries join in, demonstrating the way a rooster crows in their languages—French, Spanish, Japanese, and English. They all follow Mustafa as he returns to his father’s shop, where he triumphantly announces, “I can crow in five languages!” (Ages 3–7)

© Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2007

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