Give Me Sunshine!! (The Gift of the Sun - Dianne Stewart)

Member Name: tb4ms

Product:	The Gift of the Sun - Dianne Stewart
Date:	03/07/07 (176 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lovely illustrations and a tale from a different culture.

Disadvantages: Not a firm favourite in the book corner.

This is another one of the books in my ever expanding bookcase of stories from different cultures. This one is a tale from South Africa.

- Price -
My paperback version, ISBN: 0-7112-1094-2 was £5.99 but is available from Amazon from £1.98 but do be aware of P&P charges.

- The Gift of the Sun -

The Times ‘ An entertaining tale of a lazy farmer’s troubles and triumphs – perfect for under-sixes’.

The story is about quite a lazy farmer, Thulani who, likes to bask in the sun and although he does nothing all day he finds milking the cow in the evening exhausting! So he decides to sell the cow and buy a goat, with the knowledge that goats can look after themselves. His wife, Dora isn’t overly happy about the lack of milk and is even more outraged when the goat ends up eating all of the dried corn in the house.

Meanwhile Thulani continues doing nothing all day and to replace the goat with a sheep. The seasons change and the following spring Thulani is exhausted by having to shear the sheep. So exhausting is this that Thulani decides to sell not only the fleece but the sheep!

He returns with three geese….. much to the disgust of Dora who is aware that they need seeds to plant in order to get crops. So off he goes to get some seeds which are planted and begin to grow but to Dora’s dismay, she realises that they are sunflowers and is furious with Thulani.

Thulani, collects the sunflower seeds that drop to the ground and feeds them to the hens which begin to lay more eggs. At last Thulani had done something right for Dora!! With the profits from the eggs they buy a sheep which has lambs enabling them to buy a cow…. Eventually Thulani becomes so busy trading animals that he no longer has time to sit in the sun, life was too exciting!

- Style, Format and Illustrations -
I have recently used this book with Year 2 children, age 6-7 who enjoyed the story but the recommended age is 5 years and upwards. One of the children has recently moved from South Africa and actually knew the story.

There is quite a lot of text in this book and the vocabulary used is often very creative and new to a lot of children, e.g. ‘just as the horns of the crescent moon were rising’.

I really like the illustrations, quite different to the large, bright and bold illustrations of books that I read to the younger children in the school, the tones are a mixture of soft greens, blues and golds. Very simple, yet detailed, the drawings offer a good discussion as to the way of life in some rural communities in South Africa, e.g. how Dora carries the eggs in a basket on her head etc..

The illustrations vary in size which I always find appealing and more interesting for children. As well as this, the text is not always set along the bottom of each page, sometimes it is at the side or even above the drawings. All in all, the illustrations and text work really well together.

- Dianne Stewart -
The author of this book, Dianne Stewart was born and educated in Natal, South Africa. Being a white South African, she wanted to be able to communicate with the people around her in their own languages and therefore combined her study of psychology with African Languages.
She considers ‘The Gift of the Sun’ one of her most successful books as it has been translated in to 9 other languages and was selected as a Notable Trade Book in the field of Social Studies in the USA.
Dianne Stewart is a full time author and also teaches creative writing in schools in her native country.

Other books by Dianne Stewart:
~ Mondi the music maker
~ Zondi’s first ride in a taxi
~ The dove
~ The runaway hen
~ The paperchase

And many, many more!

- Jude Daly -
The illustrator of this book was born in London, UK but went to Capetown with her family at the age of 2. She has illustrated many children’s books and won the Katrine Harries Award for Children’s book illustrations in 1997 for her art work in ‘The Gift of the Sun’.

- My Verdict -
This is a beautifully illustrated book and ideal for anyone who is interested in introducing their children to stories from different cultures. It also enables you to discuss the laziness of Thulani and how he quite by chance, changed his ways!

It is a lovely children's book but I have to be honest and although the children enjoyed it during story time, I have noticed that only a few of them have gone back to pick it up from the book case so not a firm favourite with them, although initially enjoyable.

Summary: A good book if you are looking for a children's book from a different culture!