New from David Philip Publishers are Sindiwe Magona’s new children’s books Stronger Than Lion, Greedy Man, Kind Rock, The Stranger and His Flute, Nokulunga, Mother of Goodness, Buhle, the Calf of Many Colours, and The Woman on the Moon – all individually available in English, Setswana, Siswati, isiXhosa and isiZulu. To order, phone 021 467 5860 or email orders@newafricabooks.co.za.

 

South Africa lacks a widespread culture of reading, especially so in African languages. Sindiwe Magona – the prolific poet, playwright, activist and author of over 100 books for children – wants that to change.

It’s well-known that a habit and love of reading is easiest to develop in children at a young age. Getting kids hooked on reading, however, is completely dependent on the books that are available to them – and 70-year-old Magona believes that good quality children’s books in African languages are too difficult to find, if they are able to be found at all.

“Until now,” Magona says, “publishers wanted to make a collection of folk tales for children in languages other than English and Afrikaans – but kids don’t want to read that! They want a small book, with one tale in it, so that they can finish it and have a sense of achievement. We don’t have that in African languages.”

Magona’s new series of folk tales, coming soon from David Philip Publishers, aims to plug that gap. This range of six small, vibrant and affordable original storybooks – published in English, Setswana, Siswati, isiXhosa and isiZulu – tell enchanting tales of family, friendship and nature. Most importantly, however, they are accessible to young South African readers, telling them stories much more culturally relevant to their lives than books imported from Europe or the United States.

The storybooks range in genre, from animal fables like Stronger than Lion, to more fantastic tales, like The Woman on the Moon. Underlying each tale, however, is a nuanced moral message.

Magona is wary of making her children’s books too moralistic. “You need to think about the children and entice them,” she says, “not only by writing well, but by giving them a racy read. You have to write so the story isn’t predictable, so that a child doesn’t pick up the book and say, ‘oh, I know what this one will be about – don’t steal.’”

“We need to make books sexy to kids,” she enthuses, “so that their eyes light up when they read a book.”

This was what was in mind when David Philip Publishers put this series together. The books are small, brightly coloured, and illustrated in a simple but modern way. Each book has a beautiful, sparkly detail on the cover, to capture children’s attention even more.

“You have to give children what they want,” says David Philip Publishers’ Dusanka Stojakovic. “Children care a lot about what things look like. They don’t want things that are drab and boring, or approved by a committee. That’s why we have glitter on the cover – to make the books really pop and to make sure reading is a joyful experience.”

This joy is at the centre of the reading experience for a specific reason. Without joy in reading, and without some sort of literary intervention, South Africa is in danger of maintaining the shameful statistic that says that less than 5% of people in the country regularly read books for enjoyment. This isn’t just because of financial constraints, or because bookstores aren’t yet a regular feature of the average South African landscape, but also because great books are not being published in African languages – the languages that most South Africans speak at home.

“On the surface of it,” Magona says, “South Africa has made literacy subservient to the market, instead of seeing that literacy is a crucial factor in the growth of the South African economy. Books in African languages – and particularly books for children in these languages – will help us change this.”

Even with all this care and consideration, each book is extremely affordable, with individual titles costing only R59 each – a small price to pay for a literary resource that, even now, is far too difficult to find in South Africa.

“And we’re not going to stop there,” says Stojakovic. “This serves as the beginning of our contribution to a foundation of accessible literature that can change lives.”

“We so often talk about how we need to get more kids reading. Books like Sindiwe Magona’s are going to do just that.”