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Heritage Day

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Heritage Day is a call for celebration. South Africa is a culturally-rich country with 11 official languages and it consists of a diverse population of 59 million people. One way to introduce children to the importance of this day is to allow them to have a whole day in their school calendar dedicated to exploring the different facets of the topic of ‘culture’.

The day can begin by allowing learners to dress up in their traditional wear. This is a lovely way to spark conversation about different garments.

Afterwards, you could dive into a pre-made lesson plan. This can include presenting a slideshow on topics such as the ‘history of South Africa’ or even unpacking the 8 world heritage sites:

  • Robben Island (Western Cape) is best known as the place where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. 
  • iSimangaliso Wetland Park (KwaZulu-Natal) is home to the largest estuary in Africa as well as the southernmost coral reef in Africa.
  • Cradle of Humankind (Gauteng) includes the hominid fossil sites at Swartkrans, Sterkfontein and Kromdraai.
  • Ukhahlamba-Drakensberg Park (KwaZulu-Natal) is where the most concentrated collection of rock paintings in Africa can be seen.
  • Mapungubwe Heritage Site (Limpopo). This was South Africa’s first kingdom which traded with China and India and is also known as the “place of the stone of wisdom”.
  • Cape Floral Kingdom (Western Cape) is 1 of 18 biodiversity hotspots globally. Some of the protected areas that you may already know are Table Mountain, Cederberg wilderness area and Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden.
  • Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape (Northern Cape) covers a vast area of mountainous desert in the north-west part of South Africa. 
  • Vredefort Dome (Free State) is where the world’s largest meteorite impact crater is.

For lunch, you could encourage each child to bring a different food or drink that is quintessential to their culture and ask them to explain how it is made or ask them to give an interesting fact about it. This is another brilliant way to encourage casual conversation. 

To add to the ambience, you could get the learners to colour in different flags, and later have a little pop quiz to test them on the different names of the countries. 

Lastly, different dances, songs or interesting traditions specific to their culture can be shown either through physical demonstration or even video clips online. 

Heritage Day is an important day for remembering one’s history and way of life that make us truly unique. It is a day where people should develop an understanding and willingness to learn about other people. And moreover, it is a good day to have a braai in true South African style!

4 Young Adult Books that We Chose by their Covers

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It’s probably true that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover – but we couldn’t resist choosing these from the recent SORA Sweet Reads 2022 collection – based entirely on looks!

‘The Sky is Mine’ by Amy Beashel – well this book had to be read! It has more prize stickers on its bright yellow cover than my favourite bottle of wine does.  I was gripped from the first page by this shocking, compelling page-turner that addresses rape culture in teens and domestic abuse in families.  The writing is excellent, and despite the subject matter, is often humorous. Izzy, the main character, is just great and the book is a hopeful call for young teens to tell their stories to the world.

The only part of the book that I found disappointing was the unfortunately predictable bit where Izzy forms a romantic relationship with her rower friend and saviour – which almost nixes all the empowering, good bits of the book.  Apart from this, the book is sure to be enjoyed by older teens.

‘The Obsession’ by Jesse Q Sutanto – This book has a very striking red cover with stick figures entwined by wool – and the caption:  “Boy meets girl, Boy stalks girl, Girl gets revenge”,  was enough to get me started.  And the book is a great fast-paced YA thriller, set in the exclusive boarding school, Draycott Academy. The story is extreme and dark with dead bodies and a shocking twist at the end.  Once I’d finished the book (which I did very quickly), I did think that it was a bit of a ridiculous plot – but it kept me reading right to the end.

Another book by the same author,  ‘The New Girl‘ – with a cover that I loved too! Also set in Draycott Academy and with another over-the-top storyline.  This time the ending was a slight letdown as it was a bit obvious. There is a lot of teen drama, bullying, cheating,  a corrupt teacher – and at least one dead body in this YA mystery thriller.  I thought the depiction of bullying at the school through an app,  Draycott Dirt, was horrifying and realistic.

‘Minus Me’ by Ingelin Rossland – I chose this book because of the Norwegian author, thinking it might be a bit of teen Scandi Noir, or at least have descriptions of the beautiful Norwegian landscapes.  But I was disappointed on both fronts. The book turned out to be a bit odd with religious stuff in it that wasn’t for me.  The main character, bratty 13-year-old Linda, draws up a bucket list when she learns that she has a rare heart condition and might die soon.  The book follows her, and her new weird friend, Zak, on their adventures as they tick off items on her list.  Some young teen girls might identify with Linda and enjoy reading this.

Sora Sweet Reads is OverDrive’s annual reading programme running May 4 – August 17, 2022. Juvenile and young adult ebooks (as well as select audiobooks) are available to participating schools through the Sora reading app.

Why Reading to Children is Important

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Reading allows us to transport ourselves into different worlds. New words can be learnt, different emotions can be felt; your imagination can run wild.

But why is it particularly important for you to be reading to your children? The answer lies within the developmental process of a child.

Assisted cognitive development is the first reason why reading to your child is important. Cognitive development refers to “how we perceive and think about our world in reference to our intelligence, reasoning, language development, and information processing” (https://www.highspeedtraining.co.uk/hub/why-is-reading-important-for-children/). It’s true, a baby’s brain is like a sponge – easy to absorb the information it is given. Thus, through cognitive development, a child is able to make sense of the world around them and be able to problem-solve better.

Secondly, reading to your child allows them to become more empathetic as they are constantly put in front of different characters and situations. Developing empathy is important as it allows one to understand emotions better and how to respond to certain situations.

Thirdly, reading to your child allows them to feel validated and loved. By spending time with them you are building your bond.

Creativity and concentration skills are also improved by reading as it encourages your child to sit still and listen for long periods of time. Did you know that “Multiple studies have found a correlation between reading for pleasure and higher academic achievement in every subject, not just English?” (https://www.highspeedtraining.co.uk/hub/why-is-reading-important-for-children/)

Some tips for reading to your children:

  • Read as much as you can and consistently: whether it be for 10 minutes a day or an hour, the most important thing is that you are reading!
  • Be patient: reading is an activity that requires you to fully engage with what you are reading as well as your child’s responses.
  • Make it fun and interactive by using different voices, pointing out connections and asking questions to test their understanding.
  • Encourage language exchange through conversation or verbal storytelling.

Reading is a wonderful form of entertainment and your children’s vocabulary will expand. It is important that they are surrounded by books. If you do not have the means to always purchase a new book, consider joining a public library or even using the wonderful resources available on the internet. Let’s continue to create a culture where we encourage the people in our lives to read more to their children as they are the future of this world.

Mother Earth Day

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April 22nd is UN Mother Earth Day. A day that raises global awareness of the challenges to the well-being of the planet and all the life it supports.  Mother Earth Day also recognises a collective responsibility (as called for in the 1992 Rio Declaration), to promote harmony with nature and the Earth, to achieve a just balance among the economic, social and environmental needs of the present and future generations of humanity. (https://www.un.org/en/observances/earth-day).

At the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015, 193 countries adopted the 2030 Development Agenda and 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). International cooperation on climate change is closely linked with the other principal concern of humanity – how to achieve sustainable development for global prosperity. Climate change, biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation threaten the achievement of all of the SDGs, including Goal 4, Quality Education, that Book Village is most closely aligned with. (https://www.unep.org/resources/making-peace-nature)

We’ve been looking for the best ways to get talking about climate change and the environment with the children at Cosmo City Primary. Ultimately, we enjoyed spending time on ‘Climate Box’, an interactive platform from the UN (https://climate-box.com).  The toolkit provides to be highly enriching with the inclusion of a textbook, quiz, maps and posters – all aimed at primary and secondary school children.

Many books on the subject are quite alarming and wouldn’t make for good bedtime reading.  We recently read ‘My Friend Whale’, by Simon James to the Grade 1s.  We were enjoying the book until it just ended, as unexpectedly as the ‘Diary of Anne Frank’, with the friendly whale simply disappearing.

But there are some beautiful, hopeful books too, and these are the ones we chose to read to the children for Mother Earth Day.

‘The Brilliant Deep’, by Kate Messner tells the story of the environmental scientist Ken Nedimyer, founder of the Coral Restoration Foundation and how he is saving and regrowing the world’s coral reefs.

Another lovely picture book ‘What on Earth is That?’ by Sarah Savory is a story about a pangolin, the most trafficked mammal on earth. 

‘I am Farmer:  Growing an Environmental Movement in Cameroon’ by Miranda Paul and Baptiste Paul is the true story of how environmentalist Farmer Tantoh is transforming the landscape of Cameroon.  It is a beautiful, inspirational story and the quote at the end of the book is poignant – “It doesn’t matter where you come from – you are never too small or insignificant to contribute to the long-term sustainability of our planet.  By doing simple things to the best of your ability, you are improving the world.”

Library Week 14 – 20 March 2022

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Benefits Of Reading Aloud - Several Children's Books Laid Out On A Table

The Library and Information Association is celebrating Library Week 14-20 March 2022 with the theme of Re-Imagine, Re-Purpose, Re-discover…Libraries! https://www.liasa.org.za/.

Libraries continue to be affected by COVID and many are still unable to provide services to the communities they serve.  With this in mind, the theme for Library Week 2022 will look at the ways in which libraries are having to reimagine and repurpose their services and spaces so that communities will rediscover and see the benefit of their libraries.

The traditional hard-copy book library at Cosmo City Primary 1 school (where we are conducting our trial), was refurbished and re-opened in 2015 with funding and support from (the now closed) School Aid charity and the Peter Cundill Foundation. The Bookery NPO catalogued and covered the books that can be accessed in the library, as well as contributed towards the librarian’s livelihood for 3 years. The library was a thriving and much loved part of the school from 2015 until the beginning of 2020, when it was closed for book lending due to COVID. The book lending service of the library remains closed, and this has probably been the fate of many libraries across South Africa.

But the Cosmo City Primary library has been re-imagined!  It is still a busy, thriving space and it’s still devoted to books and reading.   In one corner the government’s Reading Champions take small groups of grade 2 and 3 learners and help them catch up on some of the learning time that’s been lost due to COVID. We work in another corner of the library, surrounded by lovely books, which sadly cannot be borrowed anymore, but the children often get a story read to them which they enjoy.  All children and teachers at the school are able to borrow books from the Book Village digital library at any time – and they’ve been loving it.  We’ve been focusing on the grade 1s this term, and they have become wizards at logging in, navigating around the library and borrowing their own books. We’ve been amazed by their progress in interacting with technology.

The Cosmo City Primary community really values books, reading and their library space, even though the library has gone digital. And for this, we think the children there are lucky to be surrounded by individuals who will encourage a safe space for learning and furthering the education of these young students.

Young Adult Sora Sweet Reads 2

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We’ve been enjoying reading our way through the rest of the young adult titles in the Sora Sweet Reads collection over the past couple of weeks.  These titles will be available for simultaneous use for all members of the Book Village digital library from 5thMay – 20th August.

Two of the books in the collection gave me some insights into events in history that I didn’t know too much about, and I really enjoyed reading them:

In the book, We are Not Free , the author Traci Chee was inspired by her own family history to create a story of the experiences of 14 Japanese American teenage friends, forced from their homes into incarceration camps following the bombing of Pearl Harbour during WW11.  The book is beautifully written in the style of interconnected short stories, and I think most young adults and adults will find it very interesting and moving.

I could not put Girls on the Line by Jennie Liu down.  Set in China in 2009 it is a fascinating story told from the alternating perspectives of two girls, Luli and Yun.  The girls leave the orphanage they grew up in when they turn 16 to work in an electronics factory winding up cables (in case you’ve ever wondered how this was done).  It describes how limited their options are when Yun gets pregnant with her bride trafficker boyfriend, and how they are trapped in a system that controls all aspects of their lives.  This book is a great page-turner for older teens and adults.

The next two young adult titles will appeal to older teenage girls, and if I’m honest I quite enjoyed reading them too!

Four Days of You and Me by Miranda Kenneally is an easy to read, well-written high school romance.  The book is narrated by Lulu with flashbacks from her friends, and describes four class trips taken over four years of high school.  Lulu and Alex start their relationship on the first class trip and the story progresses through the break ups and re-kindling of the romance over subsequent trips. Lulu has a full house of fashionable interests – she is a vegan eco-warrior, has a gay best friend and is a talented graphic comic book author.  I’m sure many teen girls will enjoy reading this book over the holidays.

In  The Year Shakespeare Ruined my Life by Dani Jansen,  Alison Green– desperate to be the valedictorian, thinks that agreeing to produce the school play of A Midsummer Night’s Dream will help her achieve this.  There are some funny moments and complicated teen misunderstandings and lesbian and pansexual relationships.  Overall it is an easy “ beach”  read – or in our case, a “tucked up under the blankets because it’s cold and we can’t go out because we’re isolating” sort of read.

Next time we will review the Sora Sweet Read titles selected for children in senior primary school.

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.

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