By Natalia Molebatsi
November 2018

At the first School Library and Reading Summit held in Braamfischerville, Johannesburg on 20 October, learners engaged with teachers, officials, parents and other stakeholders regarding how central reading for pleasure should be in their lives. Two girls, Michelle Nkamankeng and Buhle Mthethwa, enthralled the audience with their descriptions of their personal journeys with literature.

Nkamankeng wrote her first book at the age of six. This bubbly girl described her relationship with books as having begun at a very early age with her mother reading stories to her. This stimulated her imagination, leading to the composition of her first story, making her the youngest published author in Africa and the tenth youngest in the world.

Nkamankeng’s first book, Waiting for the Waves was inspired by a family trip to Sun City and is about how to face one’s fears. Her second book, The Little Girl Who Believes In Herself has already been published, her third one is currently in production and the young author is now working on her fourth book. Nkamankeng is also a motivational speaker who is passionate about inspiring other children to read, write, find various ways to give their life meaning and to achieve success.

Buhle Mthethwa is a self-assured child who is rather mature for her age of only 10 years. She speaks in a calm manner and is dedicated to instilling a culture of reading among her peers. Mthethwa’s love for reading was solidified in grade one when she realised that the children in her class were struggling to read, she took on the task of helping them while simultaneously running a book club out of her home.

She and her mother spend a lot of time getting corporates to buy copies of her book, The Big Fat Naughty Cat, so that they can distribute them among school children. The story is about Lira and her ungrateful cat whose behaviour wreaks havoc in the family. It places the importance of gratitude at its core. Mthethwa’s work garnered attention in influential spaces and in January 2018 she became the recipient of the Cell C Acts of Kindness Campaign where the mobile telephone company purchased 1000 copies of her book, which were then distributed at a school in Johannesburg.

Both girls indicated that their early success was also due to parental support. It was their parents who also believed in their dreams and took time out of their busy schedules to invest their time and money into ensuring that their children were able to achieve their publishing goals. Ask any writer; finishing a book is a gargantuan task and the scores of rejection letters from publishers can be incredibly demoralising, especially for African writers. The parents of Michelle Nkamankeng and Buhle Mthethwa were able to go around this major hurdle and published the books themselves.

While there are questions around book quality and editing when it comes to self-publishing along with the criticism that this can also seen as vanity publishing, it is a valid and independent way of getting books by local writers into the public domain. An example of a very successful self published book is Imagine This by Sade Adeniran which went on to be shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book: Africa region.

While one acknowledges that not all parents are able to provide the financial support that is required to publish a book, this does not mean that children will be excluded from cultural production. Parents can still read to their children, tell them stories and encourage them to make up their own. This also serves as a lesson in leadership because it is through this kind of support that South Africa is now fortunate to have young leaders in these two remarkable girls.