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Creating a Reading Habit in 2021

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Reading on a tablet

If there’s one resolution we could all be taking to heart this January, it’s developing better reading habits. 

Whether it’s to read more books, start with reading a book, or to read something different, the benefits of reading both for yourself and your child are endless.

But where does one even begin with creating a better habit?

As usual, we’ve got you covered with some nifty ideas to reach your reading goals this year. 

  1. Head to the (digital) library 

First things first, you’ll need access to books. Luckily there are a myriad of books available on the Gauteng digital library. 

Simply sign up for a library card using your ID number, and access books via Overdrive using any smartphone, tablet or laptop. 

  • Read what you enjoy

This one seems a little bit obvious, but many people feel the pressure to read something intellectual that will look good on their Goodreads list. 

Don’t do it. 

Reading is supposed to be enjoyable, so if you get 50 pages in and decide that “The 5 am club” is not for you, then that’s absolutely fine!

  • Re-read an old favourite

When was the last time you read the Harry Potter series? Or another book that just spoke to you on another level? There’s something wonderful about reading a book you know – almost like visiting an old friend. Allow yourself to bask in the nostalgia and unapologetically enjoy an old favourite – it still counts as part of your reading list.

  • Set aside time

If you find yourself never having the time to read, then it’s time to prioritise. Set aside 30 minutes per day – I like reading right before I go to bed – that you dedicate strictly to reading. 

  • Join a book club

Meet up with (or Video call) other people who enjoy reading too. By creating a space where you can discuss what you’ve read and get recommendations, you’ll be more motivated to read and share. Besides – what better pandemic activity is there than to have a socially distanced book club?

  • Get some good recommendations

Sometimes, not reading stems from just not knowing what to read in the first place. Luckily, there are so many ways to get great recommendations including: Libby, the app powered by Overdrive that seems to know just what they have in their library that you’d love to read next. 

Another great website to get good book recommendations is Goodreads – you log books that you’ve already read and it recommends books for you in genres that you’re interested in. 

Finally, I like to use What Should I Read Next  – a website that recommends similar books based on what kind of book or author you type into their search engine. 

Happy reading everyone!

Photo by James Tarbotton on Unsplash

Travelling in the time of COVID: Our picks for December’s reading list

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School holidays usually make us think about travel and adventure, but as we reach the end of this COVID year , the only sort of travel and adventure most of us will experience is to be found in books. And the great thing about the Book Village Digital library is that it never closes.

We have chosen 10 books from our library that will take you, wherever you are, to worlds of adventure, mystery and survival.

1. Jock of the Bushveld

A classic South African adventure, travel story of the smallest, bravest and best pup of the litter is Jock of the Bushveld (based on the film and written by Lesley Beake).  Set in the 1870’s when hopeful gold diggers are streaming into South Africa and opportunities, dangers and crooks lie around every corner.

2. Magic Tree House Collection

Readers from ages 6-10 can adventure through history with Jack and Annie with the help of spellbinding books and a tree house filled with mysterious powers.

3. Dogtective William Series

Children will love reading the thrilling adventures of 12 year old  South African, Adrian and his four-legged detective hero, rescue dog William, described as a cross between Hercule Poirot and Paddington Bear.  Read their adventures as they investigate rhino poaching in the Bushveld, diamond theft in Namibia and the theft of a celebrity pet in New York.

 4. Mission Survival Series by Bear Grylls.

Meet Beck Granger, fearless traveller and youngest survival expert, and follow his explosive adventures. From the Colombian jungle to the frozen wilderness  of Alaska to the Sahara desert, Beck Granger has the skills to make it out alive.

5. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle

Audiobook

The heroine in this breathtaking tale of murder and mutiny on the high seas is 13 year old Charlotte Doyle who finds herself the lone passenger on the long voyage from England to Rhode Island in 1832.  

6. Wild Robot Series

Audiobook

What happens when technology and nature collide? When robot Roz opens her eyes for the first time, she discovers that she is alone on a remote, wild island.  Can she survive in the wilderness?

7. I Will Always Write Back

Audiobook

The compelling, true story of the correspondence between a Zimbabwean boy and an all-American girl that started as a class assignment and developed into a friendship that changed both their lives.

8. Alone on a Wide Wide Sea by Michael Morpurgo

Audiobook

“I was there on the quayside to see Allie take her out for the first time, saw her dancing through the waves, and I knew I’d never built a finer boat.”

Inspired by the history of English orphans transported to Australia after World War 2, it is an adventurous, life affirming novel in two parts.

9. Diary of a Wimpy Kid

This is easily the most popular series in the library.

 Join Greg and his family on their surprise road trip in The Long Haul, or in The Getaway, when the family go on a tropical holiday, where everything that can go wrong does. 

10. The Adventures of Tin Tin 

Whilst we don’t have Tintin in our library yet, we just couldn’t leave him out.  Tintin is surely the most intrepid travelling book character of all time. Tintin and Snowy visited dozens of countries, real and fictional, in all five continents and even went into space during their 23 adventures. 

Photo by PerfPhoto by Perfecto Capucine on Unsplash

9 Springtime Stories

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Flowers on book

In South Africa, September brings Spring celebrations and perhaps flowers in the classroom for some lucky teachers. At Book Village, we had a look at books in our library inspired by nature, and some of the books that will take you into the exciting, secret and terrifying gardens essential for every childhood.

Fiction Books

1.The Tale of Peter Rabbit, set in the wonderful and frightening vegetable garden of Mr. McGregor is probably one of the first books many children will remember being read to them.  Peter is told by his mother not to go into Mr. McGregor’s garden, but of course he did and – you know the rest!

2. The children in The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett work together to plant their own garden of happiness. The magic of the growth and new life in the secret garden will make every child want to go out and experience the wonder of growing something for themselves.

3.  Alice is desperate to get into the “loveliest garden you ever saw”.  “How she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains” as she peers out through the tiny door. From Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.

4.  In The Tree Doctor, Dr Seuss’ Cat in the Hat and Dr Twiggles help Sally and Nick discover why their tree won’t grow.  This is written for children learning to read and is perfect for Spring reading and Arbour Day celebrations.

5.  We love Richard Scarry, and Lowly Worm Meets the Early Bird is another book for beginner readers to enjoy.  Early Bird looks and looks for a worm to play with.  He is about to give up searching when he meets Lowly Worm. 

6.  The Garden Thief by Gertrude Chandler Warner is a book in the Boxcar Children Series, perfect for children in grades 2-6 to read by themselves. Something strange is happening in the community garden!  Who is stealing all the veggies?

We have many interesting non-fiction books that we hope might inspire children to think about nature.  Here are three that we think our children will really enjoy.

Non-fiction Books

7.  Counting Birds by Heidi Stemple is the award-winning story behind the first annual bird count in America.  It is a beautifully illustrated book that introduces children to the idea of bird counts and hopefully will inspire them to get involved in conservation at home.

8.  Eavesdropping on Elephants.  Patricia Newman takes readers behind the scenes at the Cornell University’s Elephant Listening Project to see how scientists are making new discoveries about elephant communication and how they are using what they learn to help with elephant conservation.

9.  South African children might have their own experiences of vervet monkeys and will surely enjoy Nicko, the Tale of a Vervet Monkey on an African Farm by Penny Haw.  This is the true story of Alice Kirk and the adventures of Nicko, the baby vervet monkey that was found abandoned on her home farm in the Kwa-Zulu Natal midlands.

There really is a story for every season, and most of the books mentioned are available from the Gauteng Provincial Online Library. 

The Quirks of a Digital Library

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Books in digital format

Photo cred: Pen Waggener 

We at Book Village have been loving the Gauteng Provincial Online Library during lockdown, but it really does have some odd quirks!

Unlike in a traditional library, digital books cannot be stolen, lost or overdue, but it seems that they can disappear from the library when the licence expires, which can be confusing!  So you might be able to put a hold on the third book in the wonderful Cicero Trilogy – Dictator because the library once owned it, but you might never receive it unless the librarian decides to repurchase the licence.  The other two books of the trilogy don’t seem to have ever been owned by the library, but you can make a recommendation for the library to buy them through the OverDrive website. So we’ve been busy recommending the purchase of obvious missing library books to the Gauteng Online Library.

Over the past few years we have worked in school libraries stocked entirely with donated books, and the best of these libraries all have some common features:  entire shelves of Enid Blyton books, several copies of each Roald Dahl book, the middle book of, say, His Dark Materials Trilogy and, in the best libraries, extremely tatty and loved copies of some of the Horrid Henry books, Diary of a Wimpy Kid and if the kids are really lucky, the odd Harry Potter book and some new teen fiction. The non-fiction is usually a dismal collection of 1950s biology textbooks and random books about writing batch files for MS-DOS or the Natural History of Guam.

Book Village Digital Library

The Book Village digital library was bought from OverDrive as a curated collection of children’s books and generally only shares the best aspects of a traditional library.  When having noticed a few quirks and gaps in the digital library, we asked them how they put the collection together. 

They replied stating that they consulted with librarians in South African Schools and focused on popular South African authors and titles, as well as titles popular in schools internationally.  They maintain the library by adding more copies of in-demand titles, as well as new releases and requests.  

The Book Village library is indeed a wonderful collection of books and we think there will be books for every child to love.  But we are quite sure that the kids would happily swop Anna Karenina for the 13 Storey Treehouse and The Lives of the Necromancers for anything by Philip Pullman.  

We are always looking for new book recommendations and so if you have any ideas please email them to sarah@bookvillage.co.za.

Read Like a Girl – Strong Female Characters That We Love

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The future is female

It’s August, and that means Women’s month in South Africa. This is a day when we remember 9th August 1956 when 20 000 women, led by Lilian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph, Albertina Sisulu and Sophia Williams-De Bruyn, marched to the Union Buildings in Pretoria to protest the pass laws.

Women’s month is a time where we look at who we are, what we believe in and how to pursue our goals. 

Many girls might not have role models around that they can relate to, but fiction provides a large variety of strong female characters.  By reading these books, they might find one to identify with to give them energy and wisdom to make the choices needed to succeed.

We had a look at the books that can be borrowed from the Book Village library, and came up with these ideas:

Strong Female Characters in Books

Roald Dahl has two great girl characters. Matilda is misunderstood by her awful family, but is a brave book lover who taught herself everything from library books and uses her magical powers to overcome the evil Miss Trunchbull. 

Sophie from The BFG is an orphan, resilient and brave and heroically helps the BFG to stop the, man-eating giants.

Our library has many audiobooks of the Nancy Drew series. Nancy drew is the original super- girl sleuth, and as a cultural icon is cited as a formative influence by Hillary Clinton and the US supreme court justices, Sandra Day O’Connor and Sonia Sotomayor.

Many girls will relate to Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series. At first teased for being an outspoken know- it- all, she became the heroine of Hogwarts with her intelligence, hard work and ability to always do the right thing, even when that made her unpopular.

We could not put down The Hunger Games trilogy when we read it, and the main character, Katniss Everdeen will appeal to many older girls.  A brave and daring hunter and survivor, she is a symbol of rebellion against the oppressive Capitol.  Book Village has both audiobook and e-book copies that may be borrowed by our students.

There are of course, also young, living, strong, female role models around today who have inspirational books:

Books Written by Strong, Female Role Models

Greta Thunberg , the 17 year old Swedish climate change activist, has a book of her speeches, No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference.

Malala Yousafzai’s I am Malala has been recognized by the world as an inspired activist for girls’ education.

By encouraging our girls to read, they might just see the possibilities in their lives.

Most of these books may be borrowed online from the Gauteng Provincial Library – and will appeal to girls, boys and adults alike as we admire and celebrate women from all walks of life this women’s month. 

Mandela Day: Five books to help you celebrate his legacy

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Madiba reading

Photo cred: Nelson Mandela Foundation

Mandela Day on 18th July (Nelson Mandela’s birthday) every year is a call to action to donate 67 minutes of service in our communities.  Each minute is representative of one of the years that Nelson Mandela devoted to the service of humanity – as a human rights lawyer, a prisoner of conscience, an international peacemaker and the first democratically elected president of a free South Africa.

So what should our children be reading this week?  There are several great biographies of Nelson Mandela in the Book Village library that children would enjoy reading themselves.

One of my favourites is Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom adapted for children and is beautifully illustrated.  This is a moving and inspirational introduction to his life from his traditional childhood in a rural village to becoming one of the greatest leaders in history.

In Thembi and Themba learn about Nelson Mandela, the life of Nelson Mandela is written in an easy, story-telling style which makes this the perfect book for you to read aloud and share with your own children. 

For a factual biography, look at the excellent Nelson Mandela – Nobel Peace Prize winning champion for Hope and Harmony and the National Geographic Readers Nelson Mandela.   Both books have photographs and clear, appealing layouts and are written for readers at a grade 3 level.  

If you are flagging a bit under the lockdown, and need some inspiration, listen to the audio history, Mandela – an audio history. This is a comprehensive oral history, which weaves together many interviews and includes a recording of the 1964 trial that resulted in Mandela’s life sentence, as well as secretly taped meetings between Mandela and his family.  At 1 hr 17 minutes, the whole thing might be a bit long to keep your children’s attention, but all of you will surely be moved by hearing Madiba’s voice. 

These books are available on the Book Village library and are only available to the schools we work in, however, most of them may be borrowed from the Gauteng Provincial Library on-line, or purchased from Amazon via the hyperlinks.

The children of the 21st century have been born in an era where our beloved Madiba has passed on. 

To ensure his legacy continues to thrive in our rainbow nation, it’s so important – now more than ever – to share stories and pieces that educate our youth and inspire them to be a part of a better tomorrow. 

Hector: A Boy, a Protest and the Photograph that Changed Apartheid

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Photo cred: Robert Cutts

Inspired by Sam Nzima’s iconic photo of Hector Pieterson, author-illustrator Adrienne Wright has created a beautiful, graphic history book that brings the June 16th, 1976 Soweto school protests to life. This historic day is now celebrated as Youth Day in South Africa. 

The book is written as an oral history giving accounts from Hector, his older sister Antoinette and Sam, the photographer.  The powerful illustrations give a faithful account of an ordinary 12-year-old boy and his family living in Soweto, and accurately reflect their daily lives up to that terrible day.

The fire and energy of the protest is brought to life through the vivid, moving pictures – you can almost hear the beautiful Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika erupting from the pages.

Children from about age 9 will enjoy reading the book themselves, but this book is perfect to share with your children of any age.  Use it to start important conversations about equality today and the contributions that many brave people have made in the past.

Hector is available in hard cover from Amazon.

The author-illustrator Adrienne Wright grew up in South Africa and worked with Hector’s sister, Antoinette and the photo-journalist Sam Nzima while creating the book.  She now lives in America.

She has been an amazing help to us, going out of her way to get us a copy of Hector from a friend of hers in Jo’burg before Youth Day this year. Hector will be a great addition to the Cosmo City Primary library.

Some things that we loved while doing our research for this book included an interview with Adrienne which you can find here.

The author gives us insight into her creative process, including the writing and illustrating journey here. 

Finally, Adrienne’s image of George Floyd that she posted on Instagram was picked up by the New York Times in an article about artists responding to his death. This is a great achievement.

Our Favourite Stories for Primary School Children

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Books in a row

Photo cred: Thingamababy.

Who remembers jumping onto mom or dad’s lap for bedtime stories? 

That feeling of safety, comfort, love and the excitement to find out what happened to Augustus Gloop after he ate way too many sweets!

Back then, before we hit double digits, we discovered the gift that reading gave us. The gift that allowed us to experience new journeys, feel an array of emotions, and build our understanding of the world. All this, through ink and paper. 

As Stephen King said, ‘Books are a uniquely portable magic’ and through them we became time-travellers. A combination of written words and our imaginations took over, transporting us to new worlds.  

The Reading Journey

For most of us, our reading chapter started with someone reading to us. We craved our storytime and eventually, through the stages of learning to read, we began to pick up the books ourselves. 

We read storybooks full of pictures, that went onto short chapter books.

When the chapter books became too easy, we picked up novels that would keep us awake at night. Our desire to read and learn more about the world and ourselves took over – we began reading more complex stories. 

And before we knew it, we were absorbing the information in articles and journals. 

Bedtime stories became a thing of the past – but for many, a new stage in life means that we have become the reader to our own little ones, who are eagerly jumping into our laps for their stories. 

Their reading journey is beginning, much like ours did, and the enjoyment of the stories is there found in both the reader and the listener.

Book Village Recommends

Short stories by Julia Donaldson and Eric Carle were always, and are still, treasures in the bookshelf. 

From a cat soaring above the clouds in Room on the Broom to the cunning little mouse tricking a monster in The Gruffalo, Donaldson has been able to capture her audience no matter what age. 

Carle’s books too are page turners that create laughter, curiosity and inspiration. The Hungry Caterpillar and The Mixed-up Chameleon are just two examples of his captivating stories.

Longer Stories for the Not-So-Little Ones

However, if you crave longer stories with twists and turns where your evenings leap from one cliff hanger to the next, Roald Dahl will never disappoint. 

The all-time favourite Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is full of adventure and left its audience with valuable life lessons – as did most of these books. 

The BFG, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach are just a few of Dahl’s books that should be in your bookshelf, along with stories by Julia Donaldson and Eric Carle. 

If these haven’t been added to your bedtime collection already, you should be adding them before you get the chance to finish reading this sentence.

Struggling to find a library or a book shop that’s open during lock down? Visit our Facebook page and view the pinned post to find out how to access free E-books from the comfort of your own home!

Memories of a Grade 7 Book Club

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Pile of several reading books

Image credit: Caro Wallis

About two years ago I held a weekly book club with interested Grade 7s at the wonderful Cosmo City Primary 1 library. 

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this awkward age group – my usual age to teach is Grade 3s, but I immediately found that I loved the group. 

They ranged from sophisticated teens to cute kids, with about the same number of boys and girls. The book club meetings were, out of necessity, rushed affairs – squashed in between eating lunch and the first period after break. 

It turned out to be the perfect length of time – there was always an urgency in the group with an atmosphere and energy more like that of an auction than a reading group. There were hurried recommendations or rejections from the kids, with a general scrambling for the most popular books before rushing back to class. 

The books they read were as varied as the children themselves and, like the children, some of them have stuck in my mind. There were the old favourites of Roald Dahl, Goosebumps and A Series of Unfortunate Events. Humour was a big hit – they loved anything by David Walliams and Francesca Simon. 

By far the most tatty, and so most loved, books in the library were the Diary of A Wimpy Kid series.

Some of the kids enjoyed non-fiction, and I am Malala by Malala Yousafzai really captured all their imaginations. The teen girls raced through books by Cathy Cassidy and Louise Rennison having moved on from their beloved Jacqueline Wilson and Judy Moody books of earlier grades. The biggest queue of both girls and boys was to read the South African story Whitney’s Kiss. 

So, from my home during lockdown, I’m trying to picture how things will be for this year’s Grade 7s.

There will be no group of kids squashed into the back office of the library for one – and probably the library will remain closed for a while due to the pandemic. 

What the Grade 7s (and other grades) will have though is access to a digital library through Book Village. 

Now, more than ever, there is an urgent need for access to literature and education materials in a digital format.

It may be that only children with their own devices at home will be able to read from the library until we are able to visit the school, but it’s a start. There are some really great books just waiting to be discovered; from learn-to-read to young adult titles in both ebooks and audiobooks. 

I can’t wait to see what the most “tatty” book of the digital library will be.

– Sarah

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