Happy Book Giving Day!

I know, I know, this is not what 14 February is most well known for but ... I'm afraid I'm a bit of a Valentine's Grinch, and this ... (from International Book Giving Day's website):

International Book Giving Day is a day dedicated to getting new, used and borrowed books in the hands of as many children as possible.

... appeals to my heart far, far more.

As does this. A sign outside a house in Muizenberg, and a low wall which regularly gets filled with books, books free to any interested reader.
It's always a mixed bag there (as you can see) but the point is not to get precious about this, the point is to get reading.

People from around the world really get into the spirit of things on Book Giving Day, initiating all kinds of campaigns around getting children to read. There are many ways of getting involved, not least of all this fantastic plan hatched down here in the South by se7en.
The goal is to build, book by book, a library for a small community in Stanford, outside of Hermanus.

New books, old books, big books, small books ... read more here and get involved, I promise you it'll warm the cockles of your heart!

help the rural child

I grew up a rural child going on holiday in rural places, and remember too well the snotty-nosed, barefoot kids we'd see everywhere. Walking impossibly long miles to school and wearing ragged school shorts year in and out, these kids were far more tangible evidence of our privilege than the 'starving children of Ethiopia' which parents liked to tote in front of their children during the '80's.

And tragically, not much has changed. Under-privileged children in rural areas are still as poor, as barefoot, as snotty-nosed as they were 30+ years ago. They still live in derelict labourers cottages on farms and tiny hamlets, they still walk long miles with hungry tummies to schools shamefully under-staffed and under-equipped.
They're not as evident to us city-dwellers as street kids and strollers, street-wise and stroppy. But the rural child is out there, and they need our help.

Which brings me to one of our favourite places. Help the Rural Child.

This is the Mowbray shop - clothing and bric-a-brac downstairs, books upstairs on many levels of winding, intriguing wooden floors. The children's room right at the top, a tiny attic room reminiscent of many a fairy tale - the perfect place to house a wealth of stories.

We spent lots of time here when we were living in Observatory, and bought many a treasure home. From the bookshop, old favourites from my youth and copies of adult novels I'd read and loved but didn't really want to pay full bookstore price for. Many an afternoon was spent reading there.
In the bric-a-brac shop I found shot glasses to match a random pair we'd had for ever (What? Doesn't everyone have shot glasses?), little heart-shaped candle holders to brighten a birthday table. Board games and baskets and antique linens.
And when we were sorting through our stuff while packing, the Rural Child was the recipient of many a black bag - the staff there humbling me with their gratitude for what I regarded as random crap!

So imagine how pleased we are to find a branch near our new home!

On Main Road, Kirstenhof, (the bric-a-brac shop is down the road in Retreat, I've not yet been - can't wait!), we've already spent many a happy hour there. The girls love to sit and read, I love to browse, the staff are welcoming and friendly, the air is calm and delightfully bookish. We like it there.
And we shop, one book each for the girls and a slowly growing collection of books for gifts - Christmas, birthdays, I love giving books and quite honestly, I'm finding nicer ones here then in commercial book stores.

I know some people feel iffy about second-hand. But if the book, or story, is beautiful, the price is right, the lesson is the sustainability of giving something a new life, and the beneficiary is a child who needs so much, then I can't think of a gift which ticks all the spirit-of-Christmas boxes better.

AND all books are 20% off until this Saturday!

Help the Rural Child, support these stores (there's another branch in Sea Point), and visit the website to find all the other ways you can help too.

vumile and the dragon

My Dad is a big fan of chameleons. He always seems to have some in his garden and one of his great party tricks is to walk around catching flies with one standing on his fore-finger, poised and ready to strike like a tiny bug-eyed hunting rifle.

A few months back he discovered a clutch of baby chameleons, and although I knew the girls would love them, we were concerned they may love them just a little too much so we kept them secret. I felt a bit badly about that.

But I didn't feel badly at all when Hippo Communications sent me a review copy of the very beautifully illustrated Vumile and the Dragon by Claerwen Howie.

And neither did the girls.

We're all about books which work over multiple age groups in this family. We like books that us adults enjoy reading, with story-lines and illustrations varied enough to captivate both girls.

Vumile and the Dragon is all this. Friday was intrigued by Vumile's initial fear of the 'dragon' and reading the story provoked a long discussion on the meaning, and origins of, superstition. Sunday loved finding all the hidden gogga's in Lisa Strachan's rich and detailed colour plates, and long after we'd finished reading the story she was still hunting for the 'meleon's.

Claerwen Howie will be reading from Vumile and the Dragon at the Cape Town Book Fair in the “Children’s Zone” this Saturday, 16 June, between 10h00-10h45, and the book can be ordered directly from Print Matters or found at any good local bookstores.

There's even a picture, the black & white's are illustrated by Meg Jordi, of Vumile looking 'just like Grandad!'

Kinda.

a little TMI for now ...

I've mentioned before how Friday's pretty clued up on the whole procreation thing. As illustrated by that experience, to my utmost relief at the time, she's still a little fuzzy about the actual mechanics, but she has the biology down pat.
We've been waiting for the penny to drop, for her brain to tick over and produce the much-anticipated question: exactly how do the mummy egg and the daddy sperm join in blissful union? I've totally been expecting The Question to come at the least convenient and most socially inappropriate time, but I wasn't expecting this ...

A book we checked out of the library on Saturday.

I guess, in retrospect, I should probably have scanned through it first. Before I found myself tucked up in bed with her that evening, innocently charging through this (it must be said, very funny and delightfully illustrated) book. In hindsight it's pretty frikkin' obvious it's a book about where babies come from right?

Especially when we got to this page:

I took a deep breath, reminded myself I'm a grown-up and soldiered through until I flipped pages and ... er ... wham!
 

Come on Babette, what did I ever do to you?

In one fell swoop you managed to;
a) drop me right in the oncoming path of Questions I May Not be Ready to Answer Just Yet (explaining the basics of the sex act just become soooo much more preferable to answering some of the questions these illustrations could inspire)
b) make me feel completely sexually unadventurous and boring (a skateboard??)
c) possibly change the way my young daughter feels about balloons forever.

Never mind all kinds of related queries pertaining to gimp balls, hallucinogenic drugs, bondage, gravity, anatomy and ornithology. Or maybe that's just me ...

However, I think Friday was as gobsmacked as I. She remained silent as I rapidly read to the end and whipped out another book, quickly changing the topic and hopefully her chain of thought.

But I know that little inquiring mind I've spawned. She'll file this somewhere, to be brought out and examined when she's ready. And one day, at the least convenient and most socially inappropriate time, she'll suddenly ask; 'Mummy, why was that Daddy in that book looking so worried while he mated with the Mummy?'

Thanks a lot Babette.

PS, I was going to apologise for how blue these photos came out but hey, it seems kind of appropriate. So I won't.

the reading bug

My Mum hooked me up with The Reading Bug by Paul Jennings and I'm so grateful to have read it. A blurb on the front says: 'A must for all parents who've ever worried about their children's reading', but I don't think you have to be a worrier to warrant reading it.

Friday's been trying to read since she could first hold a book - no really - and The Reading Bug's been such a great resource for this parent who hadn't the first clue how to gently guide her evident interest onto a constructive path to actual reading.

Just as a baby who is never spoken to will not learn to speak, so a child who is never read to will not show much interest in reading. No surprise that Paul Jennings places a lot of emphasis on the importance of reading to our children. But he does so while acknowledging how busy modern parents are, how people these days struggle to find or make time to read themselves, let alone read to their children.
He does so by saying this, one of the most beautiful things I've ever read about reading, or indeed about parenting itself:

Reading aloud to your children gives them an incredibly strong message. Without words you are saying, 'I am not washing the car or reading the paper or watching the news. I am sitting here with you, reading a story about a little dog whose family don't recognise him when he gets dirty. I am enjoying sitting in bed with you, sharing the fun, the fears and the fellowship of this magic moment. You are the centre of my world.'

And when you look down at the sparkling eyes you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are the centre of theirs.

This act of love forms an association between the child and books. The word book brings pleasure. The feel, look and smell of books is forever linked to feelings of warmth, security and love. You have started a lifelong love affair between a child and reading.

I was reminded of this passage recently.

And realised it need not just refer to a parent reading to a child, but also to a sister 'reading' to her little sister, generating all those associated feelings of warmth, security and love, and making their unobserved mama's eyes sparkle at the sight.