Aha! Africa Reads

Children are reading again

The reports of the death of reading in South Africa are greatly exaggerated.

Children's book sales are surging, with some imprints recording the kind of growth that cellphone companies would have been proud of in their early days.  "It's the only sector that's growing in South Africa," said Sonja Vorster, children's books sales manager for Penguin SA.
  Sales of Pan Macmillan's Walker Books in South Africa increased by 41% last year, according to UK sales and marketing director Ed Ripley.  The domestic book publishing market was worth about R1.4-billion last year with children' s books generating R264-million .  But Maryanne Hancock, children's books sales manager for Jonathan Ball Harper Collins, said that children's books covered a broad spectrum, from literature devoted to youngsters just learning to read to fiction for young adults.
The focus has switched to young adults.  In April, Macmillan will publish thriller-writer David Baldacci's young adult novel The Finisher. In August, Walker Books publishes the latest from Anthony Horowitz, the creator of TV's Midsomer Murders and Foyle's War.  Horowitz is often hailed as sparking teenage boys' renewed interest in books with his series of novels about 15-year-old spy Alex Rider.  Johannesburg war correspondent and documentary filmmaker Hamilton Wende knows just how voracious young readers can be.
Wende said the rite-of-passage story he told to amuse his own children - Arabella, the Moon and the Magic Mongongo Nut - "has been phenomenally successful and one of the most rewarding things I've written" .  John van der Ruit's Spud series has made him South Africa's best-selling author at more than 600000 copies.  Youth sales are usually driven by word-of-mouth from friends and buzz from social media.  Many overseas books come with publishers' You-Tube film-style trailers that young readers can share with friends. - © BDlive

So what???

Points to Ponder

·                     Establish a multicultural, multidisciplinary and multifaceted network of authors

·                     Engage communities to establish the new agenda

·                     Align to the South African Writers Association Forum

·                     Make book launches accessible

·                     Drive reading and writing campaigns

·                     Getting bookshops to donate excess stock

·                     Reading competitions

·                     Arranging big companies to buy cheaper books to donate to schools

·                     Create a database of authors

·                     Create a database of libraries in needy communities

·                     Establish reading communities / clubs

·                     Drive the Quality Libraries in Schools Campaign

·                     Use media and social media to drive reading and writing and to tell untold stories

·                     Research untold stories

·                     Find networks on columnists, editors, journalists who focus on arts, social development to create a column on reading and writing in newspapers

·                     Award and recognise excellence in writing

·                     Identify the gaps where African authors do not feature

·                     Continue to write poetry, novels and lots of other books that can be used in schools

·                     Creating awareness and advocacy about Good News in reading

·                     Hold seminars, workshops, conferences on reading and writing

·                     Establish which organisation who are already working on the reading and writing vision

·                     Establish a strategy and plan and define the vision, get a mantra on what authors would like to see in 100 years to come

·                     Participate in social action activities e.g. masterclasses on writing, book reviews, mentoring new authors, establishing libraries and encouraging people to read and let them read what they enjoy and authors to write what they know

BY PATRICIA MCCRACKEN