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Wednesday, May 31, 2017

THE WILD FLUFFALUMP



The Wild Fluffalump is a delightful story written by Mwenye Hadithi and illustrated by Adrienne Kennaway that will have children engrossed until the very last page.

An unknown animal goes to sleep under a tall Cotton Wool Tree, where the leopard’s child has been bouncing all night. It wakes up looking like a giant white fluffy ball and doesn’t recognise itself as its body is covered in cotton. The other animals wonder what animal it is and try to discover what’s lurking under the cotton by patting, poking, sniffing, scratching and washing it…

Bruce Hobson writes as Mwenye Hadithi (meaning ‘story teller’ in Swahili). Born in Nairobi, he grew up in a house with a wild garden, visited by gazelles and porcupines and warthogs. A crocodile once went to sleep next to the ironing board and a hippopotamus got stuck in the back gate. As a child he kept tarantula-like spiders as pets and at school they were often confronted by baboons on the hockey field. From there he went to Rugby School in England and studied foreign literature at London University. This and his childhood, stirred by those traditional oral stories from Africa where the foibles of village characters, thinly disguised as animals, would lead to a moral lesson, inspired him to write.

Adrienne Kennaway grew up all over the world, but spent most of her formative life in Kenya, where an interest in wildlife soon turned to art. Ealing Art College in London and L’Academie Bella Arte in Rome where she honed her skills. She has illustrated over 30 children’s books and became notably successful for her vivid watercolour illustrations for Mwenye Hadithi’s African folktale series. Kennaway’s illustrations for Hadithi’s Crafty Chameleon won her the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal in 1987. She now enjoys spending time in the Irish countryside, capturing the local wildlife on canvas.

The Wild Fluffalump is available in English, Afrikaans, IsiXhosa and IsiZulu. Published in paperback children’s format size (275X240mm) Price R120 ISBN 978-1-4314-2385-9