Blog | Nal'ibali

Blog

Johannesburg, 11 December 2014 - These school holidays, South African Airways (SAA) has partnered with the Nal’ibali national reading-for-enjoyment campaign to help children soar to great heights through storytelling and reading. During December and January 2015, passengers travelling with children, and  unaccompanied minors, will be offered a specially-developed magazine containing two children’s stories written by local authors, fun literacy activities, and  a holiday “reading passport” with challenges...
Read More
The Sunday Times, in partnership with PRAESA (The Project for the Study of Alternative Education in South Africa), recently launched the Sunday Times Nal’ibali Storybook in four new languages. As part of the Nal’ibali national reading-for-enjoyment campaign, the storybook called ‘Storytime’ was introduced for the first time in English last year. This year, through a generous donation of funds from readers and the Little Hands Trust, and in...
Read More
Today is World Literacy Day and we’re big fans of reading, whether its with a book or via a screen. But, most of all, we’re even bigger fans of cuddling up with our kids for a good old bedtime story. The benefits of reading to children when young, and reading with them later on are well documented but, what we feel can’t quite be encapsulated in research, is the...
Read More
Nal’ibali, the national reading-for-enjoyment campaign, has created a set of specially illustrated public storytelling seats to inspire children and caregivers to sit and share stories together. Made out of recycled bathtubs, and placed in public places around Cape Town, the seats form part of the campaign’s current ‘Story Power. Bring it home’ drive, aimed at raising awareness about the power of stories to spark...
Read More
An initiative in which The Herald and other Times Media Group (TMG) newspapers are partners has won international recognition. The not-for-profit Project for the Study of Alternative Education in South Africa (PRAESA), the Times Media partner in the Nal’ibali reading-for-enjoyment campaign, was awarded the Ibby-Asahi Reading Promotion Award in Mexico City this month. The award was initiated by the International Board on Books for Young People (Ibby) and sponsored by the Japanese newspaper company...
Read More
One of the lesser appreciated problems in South Africa which, if tackled correctly, could have a knock on effect for everything from business acumen to social understanding to basic education is that in a lot of areas within the country, there’s no such thing as a reading culture. As the Spanish philosopher George Santayana put it, “those who do not remember history are doomed...
Read More
To mark the close of International School Library Month on Friday October 31, Nal'ibali has partnered with the Gauteng Education Department and Gauteng Library and Information Services (LIS) to ensure that 1 000 schools in the province with libraries, partly functioning libraries, and classrooms libraries receive a copy of the campaign’s Children’s Literacy Charter, which outlines key experiences children need to help them learn to read and...
Read More

The joy of picture books

Posted on
26 November 2014
This International Picture Book Month, Nonikiwe Mashologu shares why picture books aren’t just nice to look at, but are an essential part of children’s literacy development. One of the main reasons I found myself in the field of children’s literature was my love of the imagery that often goes together with the words in children’s books. I’ve always loved the art, colours and textures that...
Read More
Mandla Langa is an accomplished author whose book The Lost Colours of the Chameleon won the 2009 Commonwealth Writers’ Best Book Award for Africa., and his latest novel is The Texture of Shadows. Mandla speaks to us about growing up reading in a world where books were not a priority: I grew up in Mayville, Durban, as the fifth child in a family of nine, including my parents....
Read More
Nal’ibali Story Power book boxes are a practical and artistic way to get your child to fall in love with books, reading and creativity! Help your children to make their own Story Power book box, which they can use to store their favourite books and stories. They can keep it next to their beds so that reading and books become a part of their everyday life –...
Read More