Juanita Gover set to take over the literary world with debut book

Juanita Gover has finally fulfilled her life-long dream of releasing a book.
The Selcourt resident, who has been a teacher for over 30 years and runs her own education centre, said she used to make up stories for her daughter when she was younger and wrote short stories for her learners to help them learn to read.
How did you get started in writing?
With me having my centre, I found that so many children don’t read well, don’t read at all or are not interested. It’s really expensive to buy books, so what I started doing was making little books for them.
They’re little books with euphonics and they were for my weaker-reading children and had exercises at the end, like a worksheet. So that’s how it started.
Tell us a bit about your book, Paw-Row, The Cat Detective?
One day, I was sort of thinking about this little character who is a detective and came up with Paw-Row, who is a play on Agatha Christie’s Poirot.
My husband, Alan, actually came up with the spelling of the name of Paw-Row.
Paw-Row is the detective and he has a very improbable assistant called Theodoor Mouse.
It started off with one story and I thought, no, it has to carry on.
The book I finished quite a while ago, but it’s the illustrations that took a while because this was a book that needed illustrations.
There are five parts to this book and in each one, they solve a little crime.

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Where did the inspiration for the book come from?
I love my animals and I have four of them, two dogs, Charlie and Dobby, and two cats, Hermione and Ginny. I was inspired by all their antics.
How much of a collaborative process was putting the book?
My daughter, Taryn Breetzke, who is a graphic designer, did the actual layout and cover.
Julia du Plessis did the illustrations, and they are absolutely beautiful. She did all the illustrations herself, I didn’t tell her what to do.
It was only when she got stuck that I’d give her some ideas and what she could possibly do.
She’s unbelievably talented and she breathed life into my characters.
How much did your profession help you when you were writing the book?
I always wanted to write and it’s because of teaching that I wrote.
I wanted reading material for my little ones because I do like for them to read.
You want to encourage them to read. I actually wrote the first chapter while I was writing the little books for my little ones and I just thought it was too short and I had to continue.

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Who is this book for?
It’s for readers from age 8 to 11 and its suitable for boys and girls.
I dedicated this book to my grandsons.
Where can we get the book?
You can get in touch with me directly via email at jgover1@telkomsa.net or via my Facebook page, Paw-Row, The Cat Detective, or call me on 072 274 1606.
I will be doing a book signing at the Springs Mall over the weekend as part of their Christmas Market and my books will be on sale at R189 each.

*To stand a chance to win a copy of the book, answer the following question:
Who is Paw-Row’s assistant?
Email your answer to siphokaziz@caxton before 10am on December 21.

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