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Traveling Man
Written and Illustrated by James Rumford
An excerpt from Traveling Man:
In the days when the earth was flat and Jerusalem was the
center of the world, there was a boy named Ibn Battuta.
Ibn Battuta lived on the very edge of the earth, near the shores
of the Ocean of Darkness. Nothing but night lay to the west, but to
the east lay the golden world, and he dreamed of traveling across it.
On maps, he would trace his finger along scarlet roads to reach
the vermilion stars that marked the great cities of the world. On
hot afternoons, in an imaginary boat, he would cross cool,
peacocked-colored seas to the eastern edge of the earth and sail
fearlessly into the Ocean of Ignorance.
When he grew up, he wore the turban of a scholar and could
recite the Koran. At twenty-one, he decided to go to Mecca as a
pilgrim. Here begins his story.
"It is the same everywhere," Kankan remarked that night as he
and Tariqu supped on lamb, dates, and sun-raised bread in a small
inn. "Whether man, woman, or nation, we are born into the world
and, once born, must set out on a journey to discover just who we
are and where we have come from."
• Read an excerpt from The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis
• Read an excerpt from Mansa Musa by Khephra Burns
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