In July, CBN will begin its most ambitious project to date. It involves two four-day workshops, one in Clanwilliam with children from the Cederberg district, and one in Simon’s Town with children from Red Hill informal settlement. The theme is expansive, ranging from early people (by way of early music) to state-of-the-art technology in the […]
The CBN Books and Music project Read More »
2 Phumla Gqoboka: Web Management The website you are looking at has a fairly complex and very time-consuming structure that makes it work. Hundreds of pictures, dozens of articles – the Facebook and Twitter accounts – all of this requires dedicated, steady work to make it happen. Phumla has been with us since the beginning
Who are we? The CBN Team revealed Read More »
Jay Heale celebrates the unsung heroines in the background of two very, very good picture books. I’m going to tell you about four ladies in the world of South African children’s literature. One of them in particular, though they work as a team. At the helm of the picture book production of Human & Rousseau
A Quartet of ladies Read More »
On Saturday 31 May, Clanwilliam children took to the sun on a very cold day to read and enjoy (and review) stories about music. The books were supplied by Cambridge University Press and are part of their Rainbow reading Series, which we use extensively in CBN workshops. Reviews are under CHILDREN/Reviews on this website. This
Stories in the sun Read More »
A Neighbours Story from the Cambridge University Press Rainbow Readers, published in 2009. The children in the street hatch a plan to help Tiny dance with Dudu at the street party. Lovely illustrations by Ian Lusted, Review by Emarentia at Clanwilliam Saturday Stories I like this story because it is funny! The people in it
Sisters, By Lesley Beake, with illustrations by Beverley de Meyer, Cambridge University Press Rainbow Readers, published in 2009. This very simple story has very few words and tells the story, mostly through the illustrations, of an older sister who looks after her young sibling – with no adults around. Elzaine said: This is a sad
What is a rock gong? Sometimes called Ringing Rocks, these are features of the landscape in the Karoo and many other places worldwide. Put simply, they are rocks that ring when struck with another rock. There is evidence, in peck marks on the sides of some rocks, that some of them have been struck many,
Children’s Book Network and the Rock Gong project: Read More »
During April and May 2014, we focused on an out-of-Africa story. We wanted to focus on imagination and how books can take readers anywhere in the world of ideas. We abridged the book to make the language simpler – text can be found at: https://www.childrensbook.co.za/news/2014/05/28/snow-goose-theme-book-clanwilliam-and-red-hill For anyone wishing to do a similar workshop, here are
After just over two years of operation, largely with volunteers and scraping by on minimal funding, we now have a regular team who work on an hourly basis (and still a lot of volunteer hours) with passion and enthusiasm. We will be introducing each one over the next few days. In alphabetical order they are:
Who are we? The CBN Team revealed! Anele Mhlahlo Read More »
This book was an unusual choice for workshops in Africa, but it is a book that is so much loved – even by people who criticise its sentimentality, that we decided to try it. The children in both groups liked it very much and were able to identify with the story and the characters. The
The Snow Goose: Theme book for Clanwilliam and Red Hill Read More »
Since Anele Mhlahlo joined us in February, we have been enriching our workshops and activities with live music and adding a layer to the process of listening. Anele works with the children directly, impressing them hugely with his ability to play his violin and engaging them with his warmth and passionate belief that, if he
Almost every book and text we have worked with in the last two years has been African. This time we decided to show the participants how books can help them fly – like the Snow Goose in Paul Gallico’s 1941 novella. This workshop was different in many ways. We were introducing the iPad project to
May workshop with Red Hill children Read More »
Looking forward to our snow goose workshop that will be held at Simon’s Town Library on Friday the 23rd of May, we will have Anele Mhlahlo with his musical talent, Croc E teaching children how to write poems, Rosemary Bangham working with the art materials, Lesley Beake reading stories and Phumla Gqoboka showing them how
Snow Goose Workshop Read More »
ARABELLA, THE MOON AND THE MAGIC MONGONGO NUT by Hamilton Wende (Tafelberg 2013) A modern, magical story full of unexpected creatures with hadedas as the baddies. There’s a night flight over the city of Johannesburg, a magical book, plenty of suspense and surprise, and a final air-borne battle, a bit like the coming of the
Six of the best young teenage stories Read More »
Two large workshops are planned for the school holidays. The first one will be at the Clanwilliam Living Landscape Project (CLLP) in the Cederberg from 30th June to 3rd July. We will be working with an exciting new music and books theme with our workshop manager Anele Mhlahlo and his violin as well as books
Winter Holiday plans for July Read More »
Saturday Stories continue in May in Clanwilliam with the themes of: Things I love to love and hate! There will also be a writing exercise involving free thought and large (very large) and small (very small) writing. Featured books and stories will be continuing the bird theme of April (Paul Gallico’s book The Snow Goose)
CBN Plans for May 2014 Read More »
In workshops, we often get images form children of what they feel about stories or music – often very revealing about how they interpret what they are listening to. Here are a few examples.
Expressing happy, sad and angry in pictures Read More »
In the music workshop, we asked the participants to draw the pattern of the very different kinds of music we played them – and also to think about the emotions that each piece made them think of. The results were most interesting. We then asked them to listen to stories and hear the patterns there.
Listening to patterns in music and story Read More »
We continued the theme of last week’s workshops this morning by, first of all, looking at the patterns of stories in the same way that we had listened for patterns in music. This time we made the patter as a group exercise on the flip-chart while listening to a story about a boy who can
Saturday Stories – Painting the snow goose Read More »
It seemed appropriate to talk about friends on a day when the best of friends – children’s books – were being celebrated. We talked about friends, read about friends and thought about what friends could mean – whether they were other children, adults or books. Specifically we looked at the problems Trevor encountered when he
Clanwilliam Library Workshop for Children’s Book Day Read More »
