Cape Town - 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 diverse way 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 set-up is the household of a single parent whose children convince him to ask his mother, Gogo Magic, to come stay 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.
“‘What’s wrong, my friend? Please, you can trust me’… ‘You and Aza always talk about your gogo. Your Gogo Magic.”
“Akhile was confused, ‘You don’t like it when I talk about my gogo?’… ‘No, AK, I love hearing about Gogo Magic. She sounds amazing. She sounds exactly like my gogo. I just get sad because I don’t get to see my gogo very often. This made him even sadder’,” reads chapter one.
The kids felt obliged to do something.
“‘Dad, can you help us find a way to share Gogo with our friends, who miss their gogos?’ asked Akhile. Aza also chipped in ‘It’s not just our friends who need the love of a gogo, but all kids who miss their gogo.’”
They all worked on a plan to get Gogo involved.
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, yet she meets and laughs with everyone. All the kids are happy to see her and enjoy her traditional games. Gogo eventually shares with her family that what they believed was a magical touch was empathy, compassion, kindness and love, which everyone should possess.
The narration is done through the voice of an 18-year-old boy who tells family stories as he believes he’s a young adult and is responsible for his younger siblings.
Lorraine Sithole, a mother of two, described it as an informative, well-narrated book with a true reflection of the life of ordinary South Africans from during the apartheid regime to how things have evolved and the importance of being kind.