Margaret Darawanda's Reading List

"This one is very good to know the animals in their habitats—which animal lives under the roads, which animal lives on the trees or in the caves. Yes, like moving a rock to see what’s under the rock. So it’s interesting, and I can recommend it for the young children to know about animals in their shelter."

"This is a very nice book, because it talks about the history of the animals, their background. Children will learn about each and every animal, about its behaviour, how it interacts with the humans. A kid will be seeing photos of the animals in the book and know about their stories. Sometime she might come across the animal, and she has to know about it so that she won’t get into a dangerous situation. It’s about life lessons. The children will know about the good thing about working hard, the good thing about being brave, and being kind to others, things like that."

"Kids are very curious to know everything, so I was recommending this to those that are in love with the water, with animals that live near the water, what you see at the seaside, what you you can find there. We in the interior of Africa don’t have the sea, so there is nowhere where we can go and see the life near the sea. When you read this book it’s like you get to know the people that are there, what kinds of animals are there. When you get into the content of this book you feel like you are there, you get your soul like feeling being near the sea, feeling being closer to those animals. By reading it you get yourself into what life is like at the seaside, if you can understand me. No, I have never been there but I read books about the sea. I know I will be there sometime."

"This book is for the kids that like to be cool. There are cool facts, like saying that this jellyfish is never dead, it lives forever because after it grows up it shrinks back to be a baby. The kids will be like, “Ah, sure. Is that true?” Children who love discovering new things will enjoy it. I like Smithers’ Mammals of Southern Africa: A Field Guide by Peter Apps, but that one is mainly for the adults because the vocabulary is not for the kids. It is very informational. You will know about animals and where you find them, their spoors, how you can identify it, things like that. In my childhood I was told many stories with animals. If you want me to recommend a Shona children’s book there is a more recent one called Let’s go and see wild animals! Handeyi tinowona mhuka dzemusango! by Wadzanai Mabuto, translated by Janet Dube. It’s a nature book for young kids to learn Shona sentence construction about different types of wild animals. Children will have fun in trying to recite animal sounds that are in the book. The best part is it’s a Shona-English bilingual book. The kids will learn words in both languages, so it’s quick and easier for them to understand. Alright. Once upon a long time ago, when the animals could still speak, there lived all the animals of the jungle. It happened to be a drought and the rains did not come for the animals to have water to drink. So they decided to dig a well together, but the hare refused saying he could get some other means of surviving. All the others gathered around the chosen site and took turns digging. Fortunately they found water and were very happy. The animals took turns in guarding the well, but they suspected that the clever hare might be drinking in their well without their knowledge. The tortoise among them was very wise, he said “I am small and I can go under water so no one can see me, I will have to wrap myself with sticky stuff so that if anyone gets into the water I will catch him”. The very next morning, the tortoise took his position. As usual, the hare came slowly and carefully to the well so that he couldn’t be seen. He jumped into the water and got stuck below. He tried and tried to free himself but couldn’t. The hare was caught and now they had to decide what to do with him. There was chaos in deciding what to do. Some wanted him to be killed and some wanted him to be banned forever but the elephant said “no, we have to learn to forgive each other”. So the hare was forgiven and let free. He repented and from then onwards he made sure to be involved in the activities that benefitted them all. Sign up here for our newsletter featuring the best children’s and young adult books, as recommended by authors, teachers, librarians and, of course, kids. I think for these books that we were talking of, all of them have very good illustrations. You have pages where you can feel the face and the body of the animal, because they put a picture that is something like a real animal. So the kids can identify aspects, like “it’s rough, it’s smooth, you see this?”. So these books are very good for the children, they enjoy them and get involved. And also when you’re doing it as a family, you have to find time together, going through these books, enjoying your time with the kids. Yes, and knowing the importance of these animals it’s better to teach children when they are young, rather than getting to educating them when they are old, because they will have a negative mind about wildlife by then. If you teach them while they are young, as they grow up they will be bearing in mind that animals are very important and you have to take care of them, you have to protect the environment for them, give them space. I think we have to grow up knowing these things, learning these values. It’s very good that children are taught about animals and read the books that have animals in them. For more information about how the International Anti-Poaching Foundation works to defend wildlife in Africa visit www.iapf.org"