It is the first day of school in Chad, Africa. Children are filling the road.

Will they give us a notebook? Thomas asks.
Will they give us a pencil?
Will I learn to read?

But when he and the other children arrive at the schoolyard, they find no classroom, no desks. Just a teacher. We will build our school, she says. This is our first lesson.

James Rumford, who lived in Chad as a Peace Corps volunteer, fills these pages with vibrant ink-and-pastel colors of Africa and the spare words of a poet to show how important learning is in a country where only a few children are able to go to school.