Fascinating collection of stories with lively
illustrations. (Review by Caroline Smart)
Who is King? is a fascinating book written by Beverley
Naidoo and illustrated by Piet Grobler. It features ten stories from across the African continent.
In her foreword, Naidoo makes the intriguing
point that if you had a bulldozer large enough to dig up China, India, the USA
and half of the countries in Western Europe, you could lay them all out like
jigsaw pieces across Africa ... and they would all fit!
She also makes the point that there are
more than 2,000 languages spoken across Africa and each story in her book was
first told in one of these languages before being translated into English.
In
addition to the South African tales - How
Elephant got his Trunk (Venda) and Unanana
and One-Tusk (Zulu) - there’s the
title story, Who is King?, as well as
The Ox and the Donkey from Ethiopia.
Also represented are Morocco with The Miller’s Daughter (Arabic); Nigeria
with Tortoise and his Banjo (Igbo);
Ghana with Why Monkeys Live in Trees
(Ewe); Kenya with Why Hippo has No Hair
(Luo), Malawi with Why Cockerel Crows
(Chichewa), and Zimbabwe The Mouse Child
(Shona).
Beverley Naidoo believes that information
and understanding are huge steps towards empathy and recognises an urgent need in
all communities to build positive attitudes towards others from a young age. The
traditional stories featured in this book offer a fun way of introducing
children to South Africa’s shared humanity.
They also resonate on an educational and
social level and invariably offer morals, such as how not to turn a friend’s
request to your own advantage (The Ox and
the Donkey). Or, if you are going to play tricks, make sure there’s a safe
escape route (Why Monkeys Live in Trees).
Piet
Grobler’s lively illustrations are a delight, each page revealing scenes full
of humour and rich in colour. Memorable images are the elephant (Who is King?) tossing the lion in the air to show who’s really boss. There’s
vibrant energy in the leopards’ wives dancing (Tortoise and his Banjo) and amusement in the monkey’s frantic
flight to lofty safety in Why Monkeys
Live in Trees
Who
is King is published in soft cover in English, Sesotho, isiZulu, isiXhosa and Afrikaans by Jacana and The Little Hands Trust. EAN: 9781431421381 – Caroline
Smart
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