Kantiga Finds the Perfect Name
Mabel Mnensa (text) & Chantelle and Burgen Thorne (illustration)
Jacana Media
South Africa
Traditional tale
ISBN : 9781431428687
Shay Heydenrych
shay@jacana.co.za
Book written in English; it is also available in Afrikaans, isiXhosa and isiZulu.
World rights available.
Kantiga Finds the Perfect Name is a beautiful tale, infused with some magic that reimagines a popular African folklore for the modern child.
‘There was once a beautiful little girl with a heart as big as her name, Kantiga. But Kantiga did not like her name.’ Hearing this, her Gogo tells her a magical family tale inspired by the folklore of the magical cracked clay pot. The magical clay pot appears to be useless because it is cracked and broken, yet we learn how this flaw that makes it more than perfect.
Follow this beautiful tale, full of colour and folklore, as Kantiga tries to find the perfect name and on the journey learns a bit more about who she is and where she is from.
Mabel Mnensa’s was born in Johannesburg to Malawian parents. Her journey as a reader started with a grand tour of the Johannesburg City library at the age of 5. Mabel is a poet, children’s author and dreamer. Through the Kantiga series, she celebrates Pan-African stories, traditions and histories with magical children’s bedtime stories reimagined from the stories she read and was told growing up.
Chantelle and Burgen Thorne are internationally published illustrators with over 20 years’ experience in educational publishing. Their most recent focus has been on picture books for children for which they have several titles published. Avid bookworms themselves, they take great delight in the visual storytelling of picture books, art and text working together, every word and every image adding to the reader’s experience. Both have fond memories of being read to as children and this inspires them to make their illustrations as engaging, honest and relevant to young readers as they possibly can – they believe in the magic of children’s books! They are represented by Paul Moreton of Bell Lomax Moreton agency.
