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The Queen of Soweto – Biography for early grades

queen of sowetoQueen of Soweto – Basetsana Kumalo is a beauty queen, but she’s also so much more. She teaches us that true beauty is about having a heart filled with love and generosity. Her story shows us that if you have courage and determination, you can achieve your dreams – whatever they may be.

This book would make a great biography study for elementary children. Another great creative commons true story from BookDash.

Illustrated by Mia du Plessis
Written by Jessica Taylor
Designed by Marli Fourie

 

 

Sample Text and Images From The Queen of Sowetoqueen-soweto-sample-page

Basetsana Makgalemele was born in a township called Soweto. She was her parents’ third daughter. They named her Basetsana, which means “girls”. In Tswana culture, calling your daughter that means your next child will be a boy. This actually happened. Her parents’ next child was a boy. Her parents, big sisters and younger brother all called her Bassie for short.

When she was a child, Bassie was very shy. She liked to sing and dance in her room on her own. One day at school netball practice, the coach told two girls to pick teams. Bassie stood on the edge of
the field hoping someone would say, “Come play with us!” But nobody wanted her on their team. Little did they know, Bassie would become one of the most popular girls in the country.

<End of sample>

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.

 

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Find more great Creative Commons books from bookdash here: https://freekidsbooks.org/bookdash/

 

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