A 12-year-old learner from St David’s Marist Inanda recently celebrated the launch of his first book, The Dinosaur Jungle.
Christian Fatouros was introduced to a writing workshop hosted by Bala Books and progressed through a six-week programme that teaches children the various components involved in writing a book.
Bala Books is a publishing house that works exclusively with child authors to produce children’s books. Glad Kaiser, the head honcho at Bala Books, explained that the children take part in 12 modules which include storyboards, developing characters and figures of speech.
“I realised that many of our kids don’t have a voice and as parents or adults we often don’t hear what a child has to say. For me, this is a way to give kids a voice… I wanted to provide kids with a way to escape their day to day to a world where anything is possible,” said Kaiser.
Christian said that after reading a book about dinosaurs he was inspired to create his own story with the prehistoric creatures. The book tells the story of a young girl who travels to a jungle to find her father with the help of a friend.
“The main lesson in this book is that family and friends are most of what you need in life because they can help you get out of tough situations,” said Christian.
His love for reading began in Grade 4 when learners were rewarded with a bar of chocolate whenever they finished a book. Aside from the chocolate, Christian said that reading teaches children important skills which will be important as they grow older.
Kaiser said that the books also teach children lessons about entrepreneurship and how to promote themselves as each child earns royalties from their books. He added that it’s wonderful to see how children develop as they go through the programme.
“I’ve seen an incredible spike in the kids’ confidence and the feedback from the parent’s like Christian’s mom Sharon is that their child’s confidence grows so much,” said Kaiser.
Christian added that he didn’t know how hard the process of writing a book would be, but now that he is an author, he feels proud of the work.
Details: Bala Books info@balabooks.com
Share your thoughts on the young author on the Sandton Chronicle Facebook page
Related Articles:
https://www.citizen.co.za/sandton-chronicle/220577/controversial-writer-back-with-her-second-offering/
https://www.citizen.co.za/sandton-chronicle/181986/zakes-mda-visits-crawford/
