Searching for the Spirit of Spring

A young girl goes in search of the spirit of spring to help save her village. An endearing tale of friendship and culture. Another great creative commons book from BookDash.

Illustrated by Selina Masego Morulane, Written by Mosa Mahlaba, Designed by Sibusiso Mkhwanazi

Text and Images from Searching for the Spirit of Spring

The Winter cold had passed.
Spring was coming to Nkanyezi’s village. Soon the villagers would gather to celebrate the new season. Nkanyezi
looked forward to the Spring festival more than any other day in the year.

One warm morning, Nkanyezi
overheard two village elders
talking about the festival.
“The people of Ndlovu have lost
their spirit of celebration,” one sighed.
“How can we have a Spring
festival in a village that has
forgotten how to celebrate?”
asked another.

Nkanyezi was worried.
“How will the sun shine again
unless we sing to wake it from
its winter slumber?” she asked herself.
Nkanyezi thought for a long time.
“I must find what we have lost,”
she decided.
“I must go in search of things
that will bring back the spirit of
celebration to my village.”

The elders gave Nkanyezi their blessing for the journey. They gave her a bag to carry the things she would find.
Nkanyezi was afraid, but she believed she would succeed.

You can also follow and read along with the video below

About Book Dash

Book Dash gathers professional creatives – writers, illustrators, designers, editors – who volunteer to create high-quality children’s books that anyone can freely download, translate, print and distribute. Most of the work is done
on a Book Dash day, when small teams work for over twelve straight hours, each producing a new book.

Why Book Dash?

Books purchased from publishers cost too much. In order to distribute more books for South African children, Book Dash participants work as publishers in a single day, having a book with no publishers mean the book will be a lot cheaper the only cost will be printing the books. With these, anyone can run sponsored prints and the finished books can be handed to children.

Every child should have a hundred books when they reach the age of five. that means handing down 600 million free books to South African children who probably could not afford to buy them, More children grow up not learning how to read and write well, and every day we lose more of these children. Let us not neglect these children and help them overcome poverty by first teaching them how to read and to enjoy the worlds that a book can open up.

About Creative Commons

Content under Creative Commons licenses can be downloaded, translated and can even be used to create new stories ‐ provided you give appropriate credit, and indicate if changes were made. To know more about this, and the full terms of use and attribution, please visit the following.

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