The magical world inside a storybook

Ruth Hartley Storytelling, Books by Ruth Hartley, Creativity, Dust and Rain, ImaginationLeave a Comment

Dust and Raim: Chipo and Chibwe save the Green Valley. – My books have arrived.

Where do we go and what happens when we open a book and read a story? Is the story only the product of the printed words on the page or do we create a new personal magical world that goes beyond the print? Where do our thoughts and imagination come from? Such gifts aren’t given us by schools even if good teaching can enhance them.

What is a story and where do they come from?

My story – Dust and Rain: Chipo and Chibwe save the Green Valley – has just been published but I’ve written many other stories. Did they come out of my present physical experiences or originate in my childhood history? Are they just dreamed up? Did I invent them or discover them? What happens to you when you read them? Will your reading of my story be different to the way another reader might see them or the way I planned them? I’d love to know what you think.

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Dust and Rain needs your help please

Ruth HartleyBook Publishing, Books by Ruth Hartley, Dust and Rain, Promotion, Reading3 Comments

What we need now is love . . . just love . . . for all the world and for the people in it

Dust and Rain – a book that needs your help to promote climate change awareness
Mokoro paddles Chipo and Chibwe down the Great River so they learn how the environment is interconnected

I’ve just been walking around my garden thinking of the best way to ask all of you – friends, readers, climate change activists, educators, mothers, fathers, children and adults – for your help.

I need my new book – Dust and Rain: Chipo and Chibwe save the Green Valley to find many more readers so I need your help. First of all – it’s a great story and a good read – second, it’s an important book about climate change and the environment (and it would make a great film!) Let me explain how you can help me – please!  Somehow get hold of my book, read it, share it and promote it for the sake of its important message. I have given away as many books as I can but still need more readers.

the rain gauge waits for rain
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Dust and Rain: Chipo and Chibwe Save the Green Valley

Ruth HartleyBook Publishing, Books by Ruth Hartley, Dust and Rain3 Comments

My new children’s story Dust and Rain: Chipo and Chibwe Save the Green Valley is published. I am very proud that Gadsden Publishers of Lusaka Zambia decided to launch it this April 2022 and I have spent the last two weeks talking about it in Lusaka, Zambia and Harare, Zimbabwe.

Dust and Rain is a story about the dramatic effects of climate change on our world and on Southern Africa and it is written for young readers. Chipo, the heroine, tells us about her exciting adventures as she and her brother Chibwe go on a quest through modern and magical Africa to save their farm from drought. The story will make children think about, question, and then try to find creative solutions for the climate change that affects all of us. Gadsden Publishers have carefully edited and examined it for detail, accuracy and its relevance and appeal for children today.

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Lubuto – a library on fire in Lusaka

Ruth HartleyBooks by Ruth Hartley, Dust and Rain4 Comments

Lubuto Library students listening to Dust and Rain

I had a wonderful experience at the Model Library in Garden Compound, Lusaka. I met Kenny and Brenda, two very inspiring facilitators and mentors, who work in the Library and they arranged for me to read some of my new children’s book, Dust and Rain, to a group of children and then answer their questions. I think the photos of the occasion speak for themselves. Kenny and Brenda were on fire in their work to encourage children to read and to express themselves through art and drama but a dreadful and sad disaster lies behind my title. The reading room and its books at the Model Library did catch fire and burn down last year in the middle of the Covid crisis. Please consider donating to this wonderful charity for them to continue saving the vulnerable children in that community. Visit this website www.lubuto.org for donations. The Model Library is fully funded at the moment but other Lubuto libraries in Zambia will welcome your help.

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Welcome Readers – come with me to Zambia and read my new story –

Ruth Hartley Storytelling, Book Launch, Children's Stories, Dust and Rain, ZambiaLeave a Comment

Dust and Rain: Chipo and Chibwe save the Green Valley

Cover painting by Style Kunda

Two children make a perilous journey through the heart of modern and magical Africa to save their parents’ farm in the Green Valley from drought and climate change. Kambili brings the drought in a whirlwind of dust into the lives of CHIPO, an eleven-year-old girl with a special gift, and her brother, CHIBWE. Without rain, the family can’t grow food so the children run away to find Makemba, the Wise Woman in the Evergreen Forest who can teach them how to keep their valley green. They are kidnapped by criminals but escape and have extraordinary adventures as they journey to find Makemba and then take her magical river water to save the Valley and end the drought.

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