Otto Foundation South Africa

We were so excited to host author extraordinaire, Mohale Mashigo (Mohale Mashigo) at The Hope Library this morning for a conversation around reading, writing, publishing, travel and the DC vs Marvel feud.

Mohale was so generous with her time and stories, taking the girls through the major moments that made her a reader and then a writer. She shared insights into how writing can become a person’s career (with unflinching honesty about the challenges), as well as where inspiration can be found.

Mohale also briefly touched on her work on various comic book projects (including the popular local comic, Kwezi) and the game, Relooted, proving that there are many avenues to creativity and storytelling.

Thank you for your visit, Mohale! It was a wonderful morning of inspiration and validation.

🎬 Lights, camera, Sunbird! 🎬

Our readers are officially famous (well, Kids Ask, Authors Answer famous — but we’re counting it).

Earlier this year, some of our Sunbird Library readers got to take part in Kids Ask Authors Answer. They shared their own dreams and big questions after diving into Penelope and the Power of Positivity by Dr Netta (Dr. Netta | Children’s Book Author + School Visits).

The episode is well worth watching (the Sunbird readers show up at around 21 mins). We’re so proud of how thoughtfully they showed up, and a special thank you to the hosts Samantha Howard-Els and amyd_mom_author for highlighting our work 🩵

Author Dr Netta sent a copy for our readers and we captured a few pictures of the excitement when we dropped it off 📖💛

It is always so powerful when kids see their questions taken seriously, and when authors show up for the communities reading their words.

Thank you Dr Netta, Samantha, and Amy for this exciting activation and for including our Sunbird readers.

This week we have had the pleasure of hosting Nick Clelland 🟡 at all of the Otto Foundation libraries, where he read his new kids’ book, Farting in Outer Space 💨 🪐

Yesterday, Nick visited the Protea and Rahmah Libraries, and today he visited the Rainbow and Liyabona Libraries.

The book is hilarious and made the kids laugh, but it also teaches an important message that no matter who you are, whether you are an astronaut, a teacher, the president, or (gasp!) a librarian, no one is better than anyone else - we are all human and we all fart!

Thank you, Nick, for a fun and engaging week. We really enjoyed the story and the conversations about equality and humanity that sprung up around it.

💜Every reader needs a buddy 💜

We’d like to introduce you to the Reading Buddies, created and lovingly knitted by one of our special librarians, Nuraan, from Sunbird Library.

It’s a simple idea that has had incredible results.

Our readers pick a buddy from a designated basket, sit down and read to them. The buddies, in turn, provide a safe listening ear.

Research shows that children who read to a non-judgemental listener are more confident readers. And, as we know, the more confident a reader, the more they will read.

We are very proud of this initiative, and we’re excited to share that all of our libraries now have Reading Buddies of their own.

It was a busy day for Nick Clelland 🟡 and our libraries.

Nick visited our Happy, Sunbird, Sunshine, and Sunflower Libraries to read his new book, Farting in Outer Space 💨 🪐

As expected, hilarity ensued and our readers had plenty of comments and questions about, ahem, bodily functions 😂

Thank you, Nick, for sharing your lighthearted and hilarious book with our young readers. We believe that reading should be FUN and that’s exactly what your book is.

Nick will be visiting more of our libraries this week, which we are so excited about. If today was anything to go by, this book going to be a hit with our other readers too!