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WELCOME TO THE WOMAN ZONE BOOK REVIEW PAGE.                   
​This is where members of the WZ Book Club get to share their thoughts on titles seen on the shelves of our Women’s Library. All reviews are unsolicited and only those attending the WZBC may borrow and review books.
The Woman Zone Book Club meets on the 2nd Saturday of every month between 2pm and 4pm at The Women’s Library, ground floor, Artscape.  All are welcome.
​
We welcome your reviews of women-authored books. Send between 200-500 words and cover pic if possible to info@womanzonect.co.za or hipzone@mweb and we will post it here! 

W is for Witness

8/13/2023

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Author: Karen Lazar
Publisher: Quartz Press 
Review: Beryl Eichenberger 
Karen Lazar is a woman of words. A woman who has survived a stroke, whose passion for English and professional literacies sees her lecturing and who has, through her previous non-fiction publications,‘Hemispheres – Inside a stroke’ and ‘Echoes’, allowed us to see inside the world of a stroke survivor, voicing the many realities of disability for those who can’t. She has opened doors with her writing in the ‘medical humanities’ genre to sharing perceptions and voices that may not be 
heard. She has the talent of wordsmith but above all is able to listen.
And it is that listening that forms the core of the book. Do we listen to what is going on in our neighbourhood, do we act, do we even care as long as our own small spaces are not disrupted. Do we see the people who inhabit the edges of the community; the bergie who  patiently waits with his trolley as bins are hurriedly placed on a kerb; the homeless person muttering to his God – often only to ignore them and move on. 
‘W is for Witness’ is her first novel and as such it is contemporary satire laced with wit, words and wonderful narrators. This is no ordinary story and yet, it brings into focus the vagaries of our communities, the eyes turned away, the ears no longer listening.
It is social commentary brought to you by a group of narrators – who are a quirky mix of inanimate and animate objects – concerned about what appears to be a cyberstalker amongst their group of residents on one of Linden’s leafy avenues.
Imagine a Menu being able to communicate with a piece of security Wire – to pass information to a highflying, very curious Hadeda whose on the ground communicators are a brown Labrador (adorable)  and a Doorway. And up there, where Hadeda can perch is Jacks (the jacaranda) – each one with their own voice and concerns. I loved the commentary and the genuine concern for their humans in this mixed neighbourhood. The humans are a very real bunch of people = with the feisty, very bright journalist Katlego, always looking for a story and her partner Ajoba, the elderly Mr Qambule and his glamourous government employee daughter Nonkululeko - a satisfying range that includes an elderly Jewish doctor, and more – subscribers to the street WhatsApp group. Read it and you’ll recognize the others who are protected by the disparate group of narrators. I was reminded of ‘Uncle Tom Cobley and all’ as I read, with the buzz and aromas from the local coffee shop enticing both narrators, residents and me into the heart of the story. While Lazar has set this in Linden it could be any ‘hood in South Africa.
Lazar has thought long and hard about this book and it shows. She has given us a cryptic story that emanates from an intertextual reference to Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer’s 1981 novel ‘July’s People’.  While some references may appear irrelevant, nothing in this book is so – it all adds up to a story of our times, a commentary that could make us squirm. Your brain will engage completely with what she is saying. Not only because her use of words is so poetic and deft, weaving as they do through narrators, entering the resident’s worlds but her use of language is beautifully crafted bringing strings of words that might be reminiscent of Wordle or word quizzes – this is a learning for all of us. I felt that the book could very easily be suggested to young adults – perhaps for them to be aware of the strength of communities and how we must all contribute.   If it takes a village to raise a child – well it takes a street to change an attitude…and a sharp eyed hadeda watching over.
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MAGIC: From Salt River to the 2023 World Cup

7/28/2023

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Author: Luke Alfred
Publisher: Pan Macmillan South Africa
Reviewer: Hazel Makuzeni
With the sporting world gripped by the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup fever and South Africans rooting for Banyana Banyana, the women’s national football team, this book could not have come out at better time. An authorised biography by Luke Alfred, it tracks the extraordinary journey of football royalty Desiree Ellis, from the humble streets of Salt River in Cape Town to the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. It’s astonishing to 
learn that she has been associated with Banyana Banyana for 30 years. First as a player (1993 – 2002) then assistant coach and finally as head coach from 2018, winning the Confederation of African Football (CAF) Coach of the Year in 2018, 2019 and 2022. It’s been a long and successful road for Magic - a nickname earned as a result of her prowess on the field – for one who’s been playing club and inter-provincial football since age 15.   
Born 14 March 1963, Desiree had a tenuous start in life. Born two months premature, she spent the first five months of her life in a hospital incubator. The first child of Ernest and Natalie Ellis, it was touch and go that she was going to make it, let alone be able to develop sufficiently and lead a normal life. But boy did she prove, right from the start, that she is a fighter, a tough cookie. Fearless even as a child, she wasn’t one to play with dolls or dress up in pretty clothes even though her mother worked as a dressmaker and seamstress in the Salt River and Woodstock textile factories. Preferring to play outside on the streets and mostly with boys – street soccer was her life, her groove, way better than being stuck in the classroom. Mind you, she had to play played the game in school shoes as her parents couldn’t afford tekkies  for her and her sisters.
The author takes us back to her early years playing for clubs like Athlone Celtic - where she arrived at in 1978 as a 15-year-old becoming team captain at just 17 - and Joyce United where she was an unstoppable force. She also had success at St Albans and Cape Town Spurs where she went on to coach the  women’s side. Because football is a team sport, the author does not neglect to pay tribute to other female players of the time, as well as introduce the reader to her football mad family.
Desiree’s rise in Banyana Banyana saw her captaining the team when the country won the first Confederation of Southern African Football Association (Cosafa) Women’s Cup in 2002.  Because there was never any money in women’s football, Desiree has worked at OK Bazaars, endured door to door selling and tolerated working in a wholesale butchery grinding meat spices just to get by. She enjoyed being an ambassador for the 2010 World Cup, and also being a football commentator for SABC television.
Her proudest moments include being the first South African to win the inaugural Cosafa Women’s Cup as a player, to win it again in 2017 as a coach and then to win the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon) in Morocco in 2022 – Banyana’s sixth title attempt. There’s no doubt, Desiree Ellis is the most successful women’s football coach in South Africa, and while the book focuses on her ambition, tenacity, impeccable football skills and eternal love for the game, it also lays bare her struggles.
As former Banyana Banyana coach Vera Pauw says, ‘South Africa has the potential to become a powerhouse in women’s football under Desiree and under her eventual successor’. For me it was  truly inspiring to read her story and see how one woman’s dream became reality.                
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Death of a Book Seller

7/22/2023

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Author: ​Alice Slater
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Reviewer: Beryl Eichenberger
I know some wonderful booksellers in Cape Town so when I saw the title of this book ‘Death of a Bookseller’ I was on it immediately. Not because I wanted to see a dead bookseller (heaven forbid) but because I was intrigued as to who in their right mind would want to kill someone who sells such precious items as books! But of course it goes far beyond book selling…
Steady your nerves as this is a novel that is 
unsettling, menacing and morbidly addictive.  Protagonists who needle you, a clever plot that has you guessing and some surprisingly quirky and funny moments. Where author Alice Slater got her inspiration from I hesitate to think but she has crafted a debut novel that certainly makes your skin crawl at times and laugh out loud at others. It is dark, all-consuming – a thriller that will slide under your skin. Malevolence seeps through but it is balanced with rays of sunlight.
Any one in search of new (and past) titles has probably visited that bookshop in the ‘burbs – the one that smells musty, looks like it needs a good coat of paint, sagging shelves and has a strange collection of staff. Welcome to ‘Spines’ in Walthamstow Village, London. A down-at-heel branch of a book chain it is here that the rather grubby Roach – Goth, purple hair, unmatched clothes, into heavy metal bands and murder podcasts - has worked for eight years. Her genre (and her life) - serial killers, death, murder and anything associated. Living above one of the many pubs in the area with her slutty barmaid mother suits her even with their strained relationship. Roach’s particular interest is the Stow Strangler as this is the area where he picked his victims – another obsession! With limited social skills she is a night person – dark and brooding. Oh, and she has a pet snail, Bleep. I’m not into slimy invertebrates but I grew quite fond of it as little sketches appear disarmingly on the pages - getting longer and longer as the book progresses.
But when Head Office send a team to the store to assess its viability and jack up the staff things start to change. 
Enter Laura Bunting – sunny, pretty, blond, beautifully put-together – passionate about books – any book, and a breath of fresh air and bonhomie in the rather grimy store. The exact opposite of Roach. And a day person – dark nights are her nemesis. Her story is rather different. She lives alone in a small flat close to the store, no siblings, divorced parents and falls for men she cannot have. She also has a serious drinking problem – a panacea for the grief she is feeling after her mother’s tragic death.  A grief that she has never truly faced.
Roach seems to think she and Laura will become bosom buddies – there is a connection that she instinctively feels - but Laura can’t see it. In fact, Laura hates Roach and rebuffs her at every turn – a dislike that starts her on a downward spiral as she loses control on her life starts. For Roach the rebuffs merely spur her on and she is determined to find out what it is Laura is hiding and why…in fact she is determined to climb right into Laura’s life.  And this is where it gets really creepy.
Suffice to say I read this in one sitting and applaud this clever debut even though there were moments of trepidation, but of course that’s the sign of a good read when it gets you in the gut! Grief and obsession move hand in hand through this book and I shall never look at my bookseller in the same way again, wondering what might lie behind that seemingly benign presence. ​
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The Lido

7/13/2023

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​AUTHOR: LIBBY PAGE
PUBLISHER: ORION (2018)
REVIEWER: NADIA KAMIES
The Lido, Libby Page’s first novel, is deceptively layered with issues of friendship, loneliness, community, belonging, and the power of collective action. At its heart is the growing friendship between Kate (26) and Rose (86) both alone in Brixton. Kate works for the community newspaper, writing articles about lost pets when she is sent on a story about the threatened closure of the 
community swimming pool. She interviews Rose who has been using the pool since she was a child, all through WWII, with her husband, and now as a widow. Her memories are intricately tied to the pool and the possible closure is almost like losing her beloved George all over again.
Kate has moved to Brixton from a small town and is in digs with strangers who she hardly sees. She is prone to panic attacks and has not been able to share this with her parents or older sister who she chats to infrequently on the phone. Rose remembers when the local library had been closed down and how they only realised how much they lost after it was gone. She is determined to do something to save the pool.
And so begins the fight to stop the council from closing the pool and selling it to make way for an upmarket private gym to service the residents of the new apartment blocks changing the landscape of the town. It made me nostalgic for the public baths where I learned to swim along with my brothers when I was in high school. I could almost smell the chlorine and remembered how cold the water was at 7 am on Saturday mornings when we had our lesson before the local swimming team came to practice.
I loved this book. I found myself cheering on the group of locals who dared stand up to big corporate to protect the heart of their community. Ultimately it is about unlikely friendships, human connection and about how communities evolve, for better or worse. It’s been a while since I was so moved by a book that my eyes leaked!
Libby Page is a graduate of the London College of Fashion with a BA in Fashion Journalism. She wrote this book while working in marketing and moonlighting as a writer.  ​
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Pearl of the Sea

6/26/2023

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​Authors: Anthony Silverstone, Rafaella Delle Donne, Willem Samuel
Publisher: Catalyst Press
Reviewer: Nancy Richards
​Confession: I love comics. I grew up with them – lucky. Love the speech bubbles, the eeks, gasps, grrs and vvvvrrrrs – totally love the illustrations and especially love the expressive eyebrows. So I love it that there are an increasing number of ‘graphic novels’ being released, or as you might say ‘comic books’.  

​​​Though specialists would be better placed to explain the distinction.
Equally I’m a sucker for animated films – for some of us childhood tastes just don’t grow up. So I fell upon Pearl of the Sea produced by Triggerfish (Animation Studios) and published by Catalyst Press. It’s a three-person triumph – Anthony Silverston, Rafaella Delle Donne and Willem Samuel – the last as I understand it being finally responsible for the illustrations. But it takes a village, they say – and it feels like this team had a lot of fun diving into the deep with young Pearl who, since her mother left, spends way too much time fishing in the ocean to help her father pay the bills. Understandably, she’s a bit of a loner – but everything changes when she meets a sea monster named Otto and gets mixed up with a bunch of perlemoen poachers. Yikes!
For the first few spreads, all in shimmering shades of aquamarine, not a word is ‘spoken’ reflecting the underwater silence. And there is, dare I say it, a hint of a Titanic moment in a silhouetted shipwreck. But things change hue above sea level – blood reds on board the boat, browns for the school room – the colouring tells you as much about the story as the minimal dialogue. ‘This might hurt a bit’ Pearl tells the monster.
With unruly spiked hair, a fisherman’s dress sense and skinny legs, Pearl is kind of androgenous (therein lies a sub story) – taking after her rather appealing and caring six-o’clock-shadowed dad. Her one-eyed pup Moby takes a supporting role in the manner of Tintin’s Snowy. Aarf. And monster Otto, just fyi turns out to be a bit of a softie – and a hero.
I couldn’t argue for the literary merits or otherwise of graphic novels – though they are surely an valid option to ‘reading for meaning’ - but what a wonderful way to tell quite a real (well, mostly) local and relevant story. One that would certainly engage, entertain and educate young readers without being patronizing – and possibly even inspire them to pick up pens or paints themselves.  There’s no recommended reading age on Pearl as far as I can see – so all generations can enjoy it, alone or together – especially the eyebrows. Yaaay!
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Out of Mind: A Story of Robben Island

6/25/2023

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​Author: Barbara Townsend
Publisher: Teapot publishing
Reviewer: Nancy Richards
Outrage and a sense of social justice must surely have been instrumental in motivating author Barbara Townsend’s self-published book, Out of Mind: A Story of Robben Island. And, as surely, the injustices women suffer today almost pale in comparison to those in Cape Town of the early 1900’s – not to mention those who lived on the infamous Island either in the leper colony, the insane 
asylum, convict station or as part of the team of administrative officials. The Victor Hugo quote with which Townsend opens the book explains the title: ‘When a man is out of sight, it is not too long before he is out of mind.’ 
So – that’s the backdrop, and herein is a tale both human and inhuman. On the back cover, it’s described by journalist Daisy Jones thus: ‘All the white men in Out of Mind are products of Imperial culture and its particular brand of patriarchy. All the women are subject to – and potential casualties of – the same. But the relationships between women willing to support each other, openly or secretly, despite abuse, losses and social limitations, make this a strongly feminist novel.’
But wait, there’s more. Because the author’s motivation, whilst driven by deeply entrenched personal passion, is also fueled by the stories she received over the years, ‘primarily about the leper colony, in which my forebears were involved on the medical staff.’ The dedication is ‘To the memory of my grandparents, and to my father, Lindsay Melt van der Spuy, compassionate doctor, man of principle, storyteller supreme. Born 1914 on Robben Island.’
The story starts with the arrival of the, in my view, unlikeable Reggie van Riet on Robben Island. His Afrikaans surname an impediment, he takes up his role as senior clerk to work on the flower and tree planting project established, ironically, to beautify the island and create shade for the unhappy lepers. Lest we forget, in 1846 they had been moved there from their ‘relative isolation’ in the Hemel en Aarde to ensure they were kept ‘out of sight.’ But their misery takes second place to the dark story that dogs the sensitive, if secretive, lovely Vera Godwin, theatre sister and midwife to whom young, ambitious Reggie is almost immediately attracted.
So – Vera’s secret? To give nothing away, it is tightly bound to the even more unlikeable Dr Saunders, Chief Medical Officer on the Island and Vera’s guardian. But she is not the only one with a secret. Reggie has is own umm, ‘issue’ with the irresistible Cecily – she of the mauve hat. Then there is the heartbreakingly vulnerable teenaged Leentjie whose suffering as a ‘non-European’ speaks to that of so many young women, then and now.
There are many interwoven, and minutely detailed, stories here of individuals and social norms – all acted out against a stormy, bleak and unreceptive island landscape where, symbolically, nothing seems able to grow.
I admire enormously Barbara’s dedication to this story, which she apparently began writing 15 years ago – some stories refuse to give up, she admits. I admire too her research – there are informed note boxes on the leper colony and asylum as well as extracts form the Robben Island Bulletin dated 1908. There are also extracts from Reggie’s diary. Difficult to get into the head of such a self-justifying man – but just so you know, comeuppance rears its head. But I did ask myself, what was he thinking to commit those thoughts to paper!
Shockingly, much of the unforgiveable, and judgmental, behaviour is condoned by the society and administrative arbiters of the time. As an example, we learn that anyone performing a merciful act of abortion was liable to both a ten-year prison sentence and a life of shame.  And just to give you a taste of the tone, Reggie, ‘the man in charge in his household…would tell his wife in no uncertain terms he wanted no more scandal linked to his name. Not that it was wrong to help people in dire need, but (it had been done) with total disregard for how women were supposed to behave.’
And there you have it. Kindness and empathy were rare in those days. Perhaps they still are. ​
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I am Ella

6/21/2023

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​Author: Joanne Jowell
Publisher: Kwela
Reviewer: Beryl Eichenberger
 “I am Ella” by Joanne Jowell on Holocaust survivor Ella Blumenthal is a truly remarkable book. Now 103 years old Ella has revealed to Jowell the horrors she survived in the Holocaust, the spirit of hope that never left her, the remaking of a life that shows her extraordinary resilience, as well as sharing her thoughts and humour in an intimate and moving account. Inspirational in its message 
of joy and hope, here is a survivor story that, like so many others, lay unspoken for many decades. It was only some 15 years ago that Ella started speaking of what she had endured; since then she has addressed many audiences in  her own feisty style, ensuring that her story lives on.
It was in 2017 that Jowell was approached by Ella’s daughter, Evelyn Kaplan, to help the family record Blumenthal’s story for her children and grandchildren and future generations. It was not until 2020 that Jowell sat down to tackle the project. After 22 interviews over some 45 hours of conversation and the cementing of a warm relationship this was the time to write. And it was clear that this was a book that needed wider publication than just family. How privileged we are to read this.
There is no doubt that it became deeply personal to Jowell, as perhaps it might become to many Jewish people. There is perhaps something in our DNA, the generations of slaughter, displacement and horror that make us identify with survivors, however far removed we might be. Jowell writes in her Author’s note of how, when gazing at an iconic Holocaust photo ‘Warsaw Ghetto Boy’, she sees to the side, a little girl looking directly at the camera, ‘a misplaced serenity in this haze of brutal commotion’. She has a moment of eerie recognition - of herself at that age in similar dress celebrating Purim. This story reminds us that it could have been any one of us ‘Perhaps in another incarnation it WAS me’ and that this history belongs to each individual.
In a recent Jewish Report interview, Jowell states that ‘My own style of non-fiction writing is to include myself as a character. I occupy the place of the reader. I can ask the hard questions, probe deeply, follow tangents, and offer multiple perspectives to create the most rounded account of a long and full life.’ In this way she sees her writing as adding dimension and depth as the reader builds their own relationship with the feisty, fearless Ella.  
And relationship is apt. By the time I finished the book I had, by proxy, enjoyed tea, tasted Ella’s famous biscuits, laughed and cried with her as the stories came tumbling out, and placed a hand on my heart that the Holocaust horrors are never repeated. Add to that the story behind Ella’s name and why the simple title “I am Ella’ is in fact ‘complex and layered, a declaration of strength and a statement of identity.’ says Jowell
It is an emotional account and yet Jowell is in control all along the way. Ella’s shards of memory are sometimes haphazard and yet Jowell has carefully, scrupulously placed them in context, building the whole picture in a way that draws the reader into Ella’s life, through her own words. We hear her loud and clear. A truly courageous woman, Ella is known for her outspokenness in her community, and she tells it like it is.
Jowell allows us to enter this sacred space of memory and take the steps with the young Ella leaning to swim in the river near her home – swimming is a lifelong passion. We hear the laughter and warmth of her large family as the youngest of seven children; we are privy to enter her home and share those special Judaic moments of memory. And we are with her as the horrors start and continue – herding into Warsaw Ghetto, activist underground, losing every member of her family, except her niece Roma to whom she became a protective surrogate mother. She was meant to survive; from ‘the gas chambers of Majdanek, the depravity of Auschwitz, and the utter hopelessness of Bergen Belsen,’ to liberation and the chance to rebuild her life. 
That she was able to get from Paris to Palestine, meet her husband Isaac, settle in South Africa, have a large family and create a life of love, hard work and laughter, while holding her past in the archives of her memory is extraordinary. ​
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Flipped

6/20/2023

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​Author: Tracey Hawthorne
Publisher: Modjaji
Reviewer: Beryl Eichenberger
Tracey Hawthorne offers up a thriller – paced novel ‘Flipped’ that pushes you to look beyond the obvious…to take stock of what might be hidden in plain sight and to question and keep on questioning when things don’t seem right.
I know I have driven past clumps of trees or piles of rubble from developers churning their way into new suburbs and wondered what 
​might be hidden behind those entwined trunks and mountains of rubble, but it is a fleeting thought that never develops further.
‘Flipped’ is Hawthorne’s first novel but she is an accomplished and award-winning author of non-fiction books, and I for one, am so glad she has turned her considerable skills to giving us this thoughtful and edgy story that takes you into untapped spaces.
It took me only a couple of evenings to devour and then I sat back feeling very satisfied with how the story surprisingly ‘flipped’. Hawthorne keeps us guessing throughout.
As the book opens Hawthorne sets the scene: A small town gripped in a record-breaking wet season. A river in torrent, the ever present danger of flooding, a substantial bridge whose banks are now choked from the debris that the hurtling, destructive waters have thrown against them to create dangerous water levels under the bridge. So acute are the descriptions that I could feel the rush of water in my ears as I read and the racing currents.
Into this sodden landscape come two single mothers Terry and Nicky whose teenage daughters, Rosanne and Jess, have failed to come home from a party at a nearby farm. A farm where the owner and son are more than a little shady and rough.
Hawthorne has created depth in her characters and her imagery is very real as she sets the scenes to before the girls left. She gives us a clear picture of the women’s relationships and the undercurrents that lurk beneath. The reader is immediately irritated by the rebelliousness of Terry’s Rosanne and empathetic (to a point) to young widow, Nicky whose daughter Jess is the grounded friend. Terry is a successful divorcee while Nicky was left with little when her young husband died suddenly, but the two are close friends through their daughters. When curfew hour is reached and passed it is to the Police Sergeant Tamara Cupido that they turn. In charge of the under-resourced and overworked small station, it is no surprise that the wheels turn slowly but Cupido is a good cop and determined to do her best.  It is a scenario so familiar in our country and one that Hawthorne expresses well.
It is a mother’s worst nightmare - the girls never come home. Cupido follows leads and speculation as to kidnapping, rape or murder run rife; suspects are eliminated but, with no bodies, the case dwindles to a cold file in the cabinet to Cupido’s distress. What this does to the mothers is devastating, and the reader is taken along on this emotional ride as the unknown overturns their futures.
Hawthorne changes tense for the second part of the book which is a very effective tool bringing us sharply into the present. Six years have passed and Cupido is still in charge but the town is now in the grip of a severe drought. Parched and burnt land, twisted trunks hide the paths of new developments and the river is now but a trickle. The climate has flipped from the scene of six years before – and what might that reveal?
Hawthorne keeps us in suspense, her pace ebbs and flows with the seasonal changes - keeping the reader engrossed and desperate to know what the outcome will be. Clever plotting and surprising revelations make this an excellent read. I’m looking forward to her next book!
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Quinella's Pipe

6/9/2023

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Author: Catherine Eden
Publisher:
Reviewer: Ambre Nicolson @ambrenicolson
Did anyone else go through a tween animal story phase? I remember that sometime after my Nancy Drew fascination but before I got into Tolkien  and Terry Pratchett, I spent many happy afternoons up in my favourite tree, reading Tarka the Otter, the Snow Goose, Watership Down and Duncton Wood. 
​Quinella’s Pipe, by local writer Catherine Eden, reminded me a lot of these classic animal tales - with the added delight of the creatures and the setting being recognisably local.
The book traces the adventures of a community of creatures in a semi-urban garden as they race to help their friends the moles escape to safety after their home is invaded by property developers. The characters include a set of slightly co-dependent frogs, a charming leopard toad, a family of squirrels and Quinella herself, a wise porcupine based on a real-life counterpart who lived nearby the author - just as she does in the story.
The book would make for good bedtime reading for little kids and a book that older children could read by themselves. The story includes lots of action (one of the best bits is a heroic resuscitation effort by one of the humans in the story), charming illustrations and a heartwarming outcome. “
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The Phoebe Book of Poems for Children

6/4/2023

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Author: Patricia Schonstein
Publisher: The Cactus Foundation and African Sun Press I Seed Readers in Association with Poetry in McGregor
Reviewer: Catherine Eden  
Open the bright and beautiful Phoebe Book of Poems for Children and you will find a note from a little brown dog, appealing for kindness to all creatures, big and small.
This is not any dog; this is Phoebe, who in real life had a very bad start but who is now an animal welfare ambassador and the inspiration behind South African poet and novelist Patricia Schonstein’s collection of 
verses celebrating the wonder and diversity of life on planet Earth.
Some content is drawn from her earlier work, Sing Africa! Poems and Songs for Children. With the additional of new material, the poems are now wide-ranging. The main sections are dedicated to African wildlife, earth, sea and sky, but there are poems about pets and even some that deal with colours and counting – all brought to life by Izak Vollgraff’s glorious illustrations.
There are catchy rhymes, easy repetitions for the very young, and verses built around familiar songs, famous poems and animal-themed children’s classics, such as The Tiger Who Came to Tea. There are also a few wise words from Chief Seattle, the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, reinforcing the theme of conservation and stewardship of our resources. From the short and simple to the longer, more complex poems, every lively, colourful page carries Phoebe’s message to appreciate and respect all sentient beings.
It’s a pressing topic, but handled in a gentle, playful and informative way. Take the poem ‘Something About Snakes’, for example. Every line begins with S: ‘Snakes are very/ Secretive and / Shy and they / Slither away if they hear you coming except that / Some don’t, like Mr Puffadder who is / Simply lazy. He / Stays right there in the path...’ The poem ends with a reminder that, ‘Snakes are very / Stylish and worthy of respect / Since everyone in nature has their place, even / Scary ones.’
The book is both educational and celebratory, not least because it was born out of very dark circumstances. Phoebe’s story began in Lusaka, Zambia. An adult man, believing the pup to be responsible for some bewitchment, instructed children to torture her. Someone eventually intervened, but not before Phoebe had been badly hurt.
Mindless cruelty to animals is guaranteed to spark public outrage, but in Phoebe’s case it also sparked some positive change. When South African Sarah Clayton heard about the dog’s suffering, she brought Phoebe to Johannesburg for specialist treatment, and then adopted her. Sarah went on to establish The Cactus Foundation, an organisation dedicated to animal welfare and the protection and education of children in Africa.
In the course of her research into childhood experience and criminality, she made contact with Patricia’s husband, Don Pinnock, an expert on youth at risk, and that was how Patricia began to collaborate with the Foundation as its Story Weaver.
‘It is a serious thing to teach children to be cruel,’ she says. But, as Phoebe’s introductory note explains, ‘... those children hurt me – not because they were nasty – but because no one had ever taught them to be kind to animals.’
The Phoebe Book of Poems for Children with its positive, educational messages, is a wonderful resource that can help to break that cycle of ignorance and cruelty. It belongs in homes, classrooms, veterinary surgeries – anywhere where its healing message can work its magic.
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R350 plus vat. Available in retail book stores from August, but can also be purchased on the website, https://cactusfoundation.africa/shop/
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