Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Learning languages while in hot-air balloon
HERE’S a colouring-in book that will get you reading while giving you a chance to colour in the characters.
The book is named How Many Ways Can You Say Goodbye and it comes with audio.
The story told is about Sara and her friends who have an exciting journey in a hot-air balloon while exploring the country.
They were taught how to say “hello” on their first trip and they make a return trip to see more sights and to drop off friends.
During the journey, they also get to learn how to say “goodbye” to one another in all the country’s 11 official languages.
As Sara begins to feel sad as she says farewell to her friends, she also learns that saying the word can also be the start of something new and wonderful. The story is amusing and uses rhyming verse together with beautiful pictures of the different characters and places.
If people are not sure how to pronounce goodbye in all official languages, there is a link to the sound text by author Refiloe Moahloli to help with pronunciation. The author was born in the Eastern Cape and was an aunt to many nephews and nieces which encouraged her to write because she was always sharing stories with them.
She is now a full-time writer which makes what she does totally different from her previous career in information systems and corporate telecoms. Not only is she a writer but she also plays hockey and loves cricket.
The book was published last month and it is available in book shops for R180. This is not the first offering from the author; she also has other titles under her name which children may also find intriguing.