Authors and illustrators come together at SA Book Fair

The SA Book Fair held at Constitutional Hill, Johannesburg, marked the end of the 10th annual SA Book Week.
The week-long campaign (September 2 to 8), dedicated to promoting reading, ended with the fair held between September 6 and 8 by the SA Book Development Council (SABDC).

A SABDC study revealed that 14 per cent of South Africans actively read, while 58 per cent of households did not have a single leisure book at home.

Apart from attracting readers young and old, the 2019 campaign marked the first year Caxton Local Newspapers partnered up with SABDC.

To learn more about the literary world, Caxton met up with illustrator Toby Newsome to talk about the people who bring stories to life with drawings.

Toby, who illustrated award-winning book Gogo’s List, showed young readers at the fair illustrations of the book during a reading session with author Zandele Dlamini.

Written by Portia Dery, the book tells the story of a Ghanaian tale about being responsible, forgiveness and not fearing failure. Last year the book won the Children’s Africana Award in Washington, USA. For Toby, the text of the story and connecting with it is one of the most important aspects of illustration.

“It is a process of reading the text and finding the main scenes you want to focus on.”
Toby said Gogo’s List is set in rural Ghana, a country he has never been to. “I did a lot of picture research and asked for advice from editors and publishers in Ghana when working on the book.
“I thoroughly enjoyed working with Portia, but it was a strange process because we only met after the book was published.”

Toby said the experience was a first for him and said working remotely and electronically went well.
“The first time we met was at the awards ceremony. It was very special to meet Portia after working on the book with her.”

Zanele, who read Gogo’s List to children at the fair, said she thoroughly enjoyed reading to the children.
Zanele said by engaging with the children she knew they understood the themes of the book.
“Their understanding shows me that we have a better world to look forward to.”

SABDC’s campaign was held in collaboration with the SA Department of Arts and Culture.

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