Mansa Musa: The World's Richest Man

And where you can fling your gold, Mansa Musa style, if you want to

A book to read: Mansa Musa by Khephra Burns, illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon

Forget Elon Musk or Steve Jobs. Mansa Musa was the richest person in history.

Back in the 1300s, Europeans were stuck in the Dark Ages of feudalism, illiteracy, and pestilence. Muslim Civilization was thriving, but no one was thriving as much as Mansa Musa. From his ever-expanding Mali Empire in West Africa, Mansa Musa was raking in the big bucks due to the thriving gold and salt trade that flourished in and around the Sahara.

When Mansa Musa, a Muslim, embarked on Hajj (the religious pilgrimage to Mecca), his caravan of fellow travelers included tens of thousands of people, all shimmering with gold. As they traveled across Africa, Mansa Musa gave away gold to every city he passed through, leaving a trail of hospitals, schools, libraries, and mosques in his wake. Also leaving a trail of inflation, but such is the reality of gold flooding the market.

MANSA MUSA, by Khephra Burns, illustrated by Leo & Diana Dillon was published in 2001. By today’s norms, this picture book is incredibly long so I just have my students read the last two pages, which tells the story of Mansa Musa’s Hajj.

While I love the last two pages, I am desperate for a new Mansa Musa picture book (any picture book authors around here? I see a hole in the market!)¹

Place to explores: Local coffee shops and independent bookstores. Paid for by YOU, my lovely readers!

In case you, like Mansa Musa, are fabulously wealthy and looking for places to throw your gold, look no further! I’ve recently turned on the ability for people to pay me for this newsletter.

After nearly a year of writing free weekly newsletters, I decided to turn on the paid option. Awhile back, two loyal readers pledged to financially support this newsletter and I finally decided to take them up on their offer.

These people: One of my best friends (hi Rachel!) and the other is my 11th-grade history teacher (hi Mr. C!), proving that teachers continue to support their students even 20 years after they graduate.

Please know that paying for this newsletter is completely optional. My weekly Sunday posts full of books to read, lessons to teach, and places to explore will remain free and available to all. Please don’t feel guilted into paying. I read many, many newsletters that I do not pay for. I love it when people subscribe to the newsletter for free. Every time someone signs up for a free subscription to this very newsletter, I get an email and I do a little happy dance. So thank you ALL for your support.

If you do choose a paid subscription, know that the money will be spent patronizing my favorite local coffee shops and independent bookstores. Every week, I write this newsletter from a coffee shop while my daughter is at her cheer practice. I have zero hope that my writing will ever pay for the endless expenses of competitive cheerleading, your support would help fund my coffee habit at my local Woods Coffee.

Many of the books reviewed here were borrowed from my local library or are holdovers from my days as a book reviewer. When I buy books, I shop locally. Some of my favorite independent bookstores are Edmonds Bookshop, Brick & Mortar Books in Redmond, Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park, and Blue Kettle Books, a bookstore-in-a-bus that travels around the Seattle area. Just like Mansa Musa funded libraries, your financial support will be funneled back into indie bookstores :)

A Lesson to Teach: Learning about explorers who are not Columbus, Marco Polo, Magellan, or Vasco de Gamma

Of course, my main source of funding for coffee, books, competitive cheerleading, and all other life expenses is teaching. Luckily, I live in Washington State, where teachers are pretty well paid. It CAN be done! Take note legislators in Oklahoma and Nevada and Colorado and…well, I don’t have space to type in all the states that pay abysmal salaries, but you get the point.

Anyway, my well-paid self teaches my students about Mansa Musa as part of their unit on exploration. First, I have students analyze their textbook. They discover that it only features European explorers. Students learn the world “Eurocentric,” and then we promptly look elsewhere to learn about the Chinese, Polynesian, African, and Native Americans who explored the world.

My students created the graph, I took the picture. For the lesson plan on how to analyze representation in a textbook, click here.

As a class, we spent a few days learning about Polynesian exploration (yes, we watch that song from Moana! Read all about it on the Lit Think Podcast blog here)

Then, I break my students up into five groups to study other explorers. Each group analyzes a picture book (I grab them from the local library), reads an article online, and watches a video clip about their explorer. Each student completes notes on their explorer on this worksheet. After groups have completed their learning, I break students up into Jigsaw Groups and they teach their new group about their explorer, completing this chart.

Here are the explorers, recommended books, and the video/article links:

• Mansa Musa

  • Picture book: Mansa Musa: The Lion of Mali by Khephra Burns

  • Article: This 14th-Century African Emperor Remains the Richest Person in History

  • Video Clip: Mansa Musa, one of the wealthiest people who ever lived

• Ibn Battuta

  • Picture book: Traveling Man: The Journey of Ibn Battuta by James Rumford

  • Article: Why Moroccan Scholar Ibn Battuta May Be the Greatest Explorer of All Time

  • Video Clip: Ibn Battuta: The Great Traveler

• Zheng He

  • Picture book: Zheng He: The Great Chinese Explorer by Jian Li (this book is in English and Chinese!)

  • Article: Chinese Admiral in the Indian Ocean

  • Video Clip: The Voyages of Zheng He

• Isabella Bird

  • Picture book: Away with Words: The Daring Story of Isabella Bird by Lori Mortensen

  • Article: Seven Reasons Why Isabella Bird Should Be Your New Role Model

  • Video Clip: Who Was Isabell Bird?

• Sacagawea

  • Picture book: I am Sacagawea by Brad Meltzer

  • Article: Sacagawea

  • Video Clip: Sacagawea: The True Story

Although I teach Mansa Musa as part of my unit on exploration, he comes up again during my mini-unit on World Religions. The story of Mansa Musa traveling to Mecca and giving away fistfuls of gold every step of the way exemplifies two the the Pillars of Islam.

Happy Reading, Teaching, and Exploring! See y’all next week!

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1. There are a few self-published Mansa Musa picture books, but I’m still a little skeptical. (Self-published novels? Yes! Self-published picture books? Not yet). I just haven’t seen any great ones, which makes sense. It’s rare that someone has the skills to be a picture book writer AND illustrator AND art director. Listen to Jen Laughran’s podcast with Scholastic Art Director Brian LaRossa for an idea of exactly how much work and expertise goes into picture book creation.