The Sunday Times Nal’ibali Storybook was launched at the Dalubuhle Primary School in Franschhoek as part of the Franschhoek Literary Festival
Created in partnership with PRAESA (The Project for the Study of Alternative Education in South Africa), the storybook comprises ten brand new children’s stories written by leading South African authors and is complete with illustrations.
The illustrated stories will be printed in all our official languages, starting with English and followed with isiZulu and isiXhosa later this year. The storybooks are aimed at young children from Grade R to Grade 6 with the first 200 000 copies donated to schools, reading clubs, libraries and other NGO reading initiatives around the country.
The Sunday Times has already produced two such storybooks and distributed 2 million copies of these to schoolchildren nationwide. Having received a generous donation from Mrs Coralie Rutherford this year, Times Media has been able to commission a new book and incorporate it as part of a joint literacy initiative with PRAESA. The initiative, Nal’ibali, is a national reading-for-enjoyment campaign that supports bilingual literacy development and encourages parents and children to engage with each other through reading.
The launch on 16 May celebrated the new stories and was attended by the Western Cape Minister of Education, Donald Grant, who was presented with a first edition copy of the book. There was a short reading of one of the stories, attended by a number of primary school pupils, by author Chris van Wyk in English and a second reading in isiXhosa.
