After just over two years of operation, largely with volunteers and scraping by on minimal funding, we now have a regular team who work on an hourly basis (and still a lot of volunteer hours) with passion and enthusiasm. We will be introducing each one over the next few days. In alphabetical order they are: […]
Who are we? The CBN Team revealed! Anele Mhlahlo Read More »
This book was an unusual choice for workshops in Africa, but it is a book that is so much loved – even by people who criticise its sentimentality, that we decided to try it. The children in both groups liked it very much and were able to identify with the story and the characters. The
The Snow Goose: Theme book for Clanwilliam and Red Hill Read More »
Since Anele Mhlahlo joined us in February, we have been enriching our workshops and activities with live music and adding a layer to the process of listening. Anele works with the children directly, impressing them hugely with his ability to play his violin and engaging them with his warmth and passionate belief that, if he
Almost every book and text we have worked with in the last two years has been African. This time we decided to show the participants how books can help them fly – like the Snow Goose in Paul Gallico’s 1941 novella. This workshop was different in many ways. We were introducing the iPad project to
May workshop with Red Hill children Read More »
Looking forward to our snow goose workshop that will be held at Simon’s Town Library on Friday the 23rd of May, we will have Anele Mhlahlo with his musical talent, Croc E teaching children how to write poems, Rosemary Bangham working with the art materials, Lesley Beake reading stories and Phumla Gqoboka showing them how
Snow Goose Workshop Read More »
ARABELLA, THE MOON AND THE MAGIC MONGONGO NUT by Hamilton Wende (Tafelberg 2013) A modern, magical story full of unexpected creatures with hadedas as the baddies. There’s a night flight over the city of Johannesburg, a magical book, plenty of suspense and surprise, and a final air-borne battle, a bit like the coming of the
Six of the best young teenage stories Read More »
Two large workshops are planned for the school holidays. The first one will be at the Clanwilliam Living Landscape Project (CLLP) in the Cederberg from 30th June to 3rd July. We will be working with an exciting new music and books theme with our workshop manager Anele Mhlahlo and his violin as well as books
Winter Holiday plans for July Read More »
Saturday Stories continue in May in Clanwilliam with the themes of: Things I love to love and hate! There will also be a writing exercise involving free thought and large (very large) and small (very small) writing. Featured books and stories will be continuing the bird theme of April (Paul Gallico’s book The Snow Goose)
CBN Plans for May 2014 Read More »
In workshops, we often get images form children of what they feel about stories or music – often very revealing about how they interpret what they are listening to. Here are a few examples.
Expressing happy, sad and angry in pictures Read More »
In the music workshop, we asked the participants to draw the pattern of the very different kinds of music we played them – and also to think about the emotions that each piece made them think of. The results were most interesting. We then asked them to listen to stories and hear the patterns there.
Listening to patterns in music and story Read More »
We continued the theme of last week’s workshops this morning by, first of all, looking at the patterns of stories in the same way that we had listened for patterns in music. This time we made the patter as a group exercise on the flip-chart while listening to a story about a boy who can
Saturday Stories – Painting the snow goose Read More »
It seemed appropriate to talk about friends on a day when the best of friends – children’s books – were being celebrated. We talked about friends, read about friends and thought about what friends could mean – whether they were other children, adults or books. Specifically we looked at the problems Trevor encountered when he
Clanwilliam Library Workshop for Children’s Book Day Read More »
The Snow Goose – what I felt Children in Clanwilliam listened to music – both live, played by Anele Mhlahlo on his violin and recorded on an iPad. The story we used as a starting point was Paul Gallico’s book: The Snow Bird. Here are some sentences participants wrote. By Deoni I listened to the
The Snow Goose – what I felt Read More »
On the last day of the school autumn break, CBN held a workshop at Clanwilliam Living Landscape Project. We were focusing on the art of listening – both to words and to music. Anele Mhlahlo brought his violin to explain the finer points. We worked with recorded music first of all pointing out that not
Music and Books – a Cederberg Stories workshop Read More »
CBN Reporting on a successful year The Annual Report for 2013 is now available under the resources tab – here’s the link https://www.childrensbook.co.za/resources
Annual Report 2013 Read More »
Today, 2 April, is World children’s Book Day and to celebrate, here is some news of a highly successful library outreach project . Every weekday afternoon from 3.00 to 4.30 children are invited to come to the library where special events are occasionally arranged and help offered in choosing books and stories. Clanwilliam Library works
Clanwilliam is reading! Read More »
On the 4th April (Friday) there will be the International Children’s Book Day at Clanwilliams where Lesley Beake will be doing group reading Here is the link to ICBD website http://www.ibby.org/index.php?id=269
International Children’s Book Day Read More »
The Cederberg Stories Project will be holding a workshop on Friday 4th April on Music and Stories – Stories and Music. Anele Mhlahlo will play his violin for the grade 6 children who have been invited to attend (11 years old) and Lesley Beake will read and tell stories about music. Professor john Parkington will
Cederberg Stories Project Read More »
The children shared their stories about their family. They listened to family stories, drew pictures of their families, and wrote down some thoughts. Comronita Titus The best day my family ever had was when we were on christmas day, we all went to the dam, me and my sister helped our mother with the food.
Stories about Family Read More »
This book, written by Katherine Appelgate and published in America by Feiwel and Friends in 2007 goes to every workshop with me – and never fails to make an impression, whether to elders in a writing workshop or juniors in a reading one. It is the extremely moving story, told in free verse, of Kek,
Home of the Brave Read More »
