Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Book shares importance of empathy
A NEW addition to South Africa’s children’s books, Gogo Magic and her Magic Food Truck, is a fun read about empathy, love, friendships and family.
The 58-page book written and published by a divorced dad Melusi Tshabalala, sees his children spreading love in their community by sharing their own grandmother, named Gogo Magic, with all children who live far or are missing their grandparents due to different reasons.
Tshabalala hopes the book helps children aged 10 and over understand the diversity of life and that it is okay to have a unique family structure as long as it is in a safe, healthy environment. The book includes tasks and games.
“The book touches on unconventional family structures, normalising them. It also seeks to help young readers understand why certain things are the way they are, in particular in relation to living standards of the different racial groupings, and this again done to foster the idea of empathy,” Tshabalala explained.
The children of a single parent convince him to ask his mother, Gogo Magic, to come live with them so she can share her magic with all children. This is after one friend was sad during playtime and when asked why, she revealed that she missed her grandmother.
In the end, readers see Gogo Magic sharing her magic through creating a family-friendly mobile restaurant serving traditional food that’s not often found in the area. All the kids are happy to see her and enjoy her traditional games. Gogo tells her family what they believed was a magical touch was empathy, compassion, kindness and love.
The narrator is an 18-year-old boy who tells family stories as he believes he’s a young adult responsible for his younger siblings.
Lorraine Sithole, a mother of two, said it is an informative, well-narrated book with a true reflection of the life of ordinary South Africans from apartheid to how things have evolved and the importance of being kind.