Rustum Kozain’s formative reading experiences
In times long past in sunny Paarl, before This Carting Life, Rustum Kozain had little hands and this is what he read …
Rustum’s earliest memory of books and reading:
I have to mention nursery rhymes sung by my mom:
There was once a little rabbit in a family of six;
such a naughty little fellow full of naughty little tricks.
And he would not mind his mother, nor his father nor his aunt.
And I hardly like to tell you that he sometimes said I shan’t.
(The rabbit eventually gets killed by a hunter).
And Doris Day and Danny Kaye records; also Sparky’s Magic Piano on vinyl. Then there was a record demonstrating the wonderful technology of stereo – trains moving from one speaker to the other, soldiers marching through our living room (“When Johnny comes marching home again”). And, as a child, I thrilled also to the cannons in Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. I mention the audio stuff because, like books, it sparked and intrigued the imagination; and it was an introduction to a broader cultural literacy. Yes, admittedly an anglophile, colonial and now derided as politically incorrect cultural literacy, but it also introduced a command over language (outweighing the negative, I would say) and pleasure in language, in the surprising turns grammar can take, in its rhythms and rhymes. And and and, the audio stuff was also an introduction to a literary literacy – a figurative world.
And then books. But I confuse the age-appropriate years. My aunt, who was a Grade 1 (Sub A) teacher, baby-sat me by taking me along to school when I was four and I remember books from her class library which, now, in retrospect, seem either to low in reading-ability, or too advanced. Nevertheless, I remember Ferdinand the Bull (Rachelle Greef mentioned it in Boeke Insig recently, and it all came back to me), and another book I borrowed from the class library every week, a book about a seal, in Afrikaans. Unfortunately I can’t remember the title, but I read it religiously every week, and would even fight other children for the book. An illustrated version of The Tortoise and the Hare was another favourite. Rumpestiltskin and Rapunzel were also favourites; Jack in the Beanstalk, as read and as told as a bedtime story, various Norse and Gothic legends as collected in school readers.
Then, the most enduring was Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses, which I had at home and which would serve me in my preteens. Several poems in the book touch, in some way, on the imagination: through books, daydreaming, dreaming, playing, and those were my favourite poems. I read my first (adult) novel while in Grade 3 – it was a thick Heinz Konsalik (German novelist, translated into Afrikaans), set during WWII. It took me six months to complete it.
Also the usual suspects: Kuifie (Tintin), Asterix and Obelix (both these series read in English and Afrikaans, and read on Saturday visits to a cousin, who borrowed them from the public library). It soon became a mass, eclectic thing, a veritable mash-up: my mother’s romance novels and pulp fiction, from Catherine Cookson to James Hadley Chase to Reader’s Digest condensed novels in my early teens (my mother was broadminded and didn’t care about the ‘adult’ subject-matter). Loads of especially Afrikaans youth literature: Fritz Deelman, a science fiction series; Jasper, a sort of Afrikaans Just William; Seuns van die Wolke (science fiction translated into Afrikaans from Dutch, I think). Then what my mother called “Tickey Terribles”, i.e. photo stories (Ruiter in Swart, Grensvegter, etc etc.). The Just William series. Comics: Tiger, Roy of the Rovers, Beano, Battle comics, scattered American comics. I was a big fan of The Hardy Boys. Meal times found me properly distracted by the ingredients-labels on the tomato sauce or chutney bottle. We had a junk room, filled with stacks of old newspapers and old National Geographics – I would disappear in there for hours. Even my father’s auto-mechanic manuals was fodder, so I know the difference between a crank shaft and a cam shaft, a flywheel and a clutch-plate. And then, we had What and Where, compendiums answering those questions about a range of topics: Where are the Isles of Langerhans or what is breadfruit, etc. Then, also, various legends and mythology from Islamic history, as well as the Children’s Bible at school – all gripping stories. But the most interesting thing about all this is that we bought few books; rather, books were borrowed or read on visits. My mother borrowing and talking books with friends, and the children following suit. Most of my childhood friends engaged with some manner of reading material, and that allowed the depth and variety.
Rustum’s picture books:
A Child’s Garden of Verses was illustrated and the pictures opened the poems and held me fascinated; at the same time, one couldn’t just look at the pictures – that was boring. So, the poems would be read and re-read, picture and poem feeding off each other. The Tortoise and the Hare was lush in illustration, almost like Henri Rousseau for children (unless my memory is becoming overactive). It was such a magical world for me – the tortoise struggling through blades and blades of green, green grass, the hare chomping on succulent leaves. Those images have endured in all their vividness. The line-drawings in Ferdinand the Bull also held some fascination, as my brother and I kept on redrawing Ferdinand – he was a good bull.
Rustum, as an adult, reading with children:
I don’t have children of my own, and don’t see my friends with children for long enough to read to them, an activity I quite enjoy. In fact, a decade ago, I was the designated reader for a friend’s little boy. Every Sunday on a visit, the boy would implore me to read one of his books – I forget the title – over and over. And, yes, I did the voices and scary sounds. On developing literacy, I think that together with being read to by adults, children also need to see adults reading (by themselves, their own books) so that the activity of reading becomes a plausible pastime.
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Ferdinand really was a good bull, he’s been called a passivist. There are several Ferdinand lesson plans online, but this one is particularly interesting: Ferdinand the Bull Rescource Guide for Teachers on Non-violent Conflict Resolution.
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On Friday I received an email from Carol Bloch to say that Lukhanyiso Primary School situated in Paballelo township is trying to establish a reading club like the wonderful Vulindlela Reading Club in Langa. Lukhanyiso is a no-fee school with limited reading materials. To get started with their reading club they need 70 sets of English books, 50 sets of Afrikaans books and 30 sets of IsiXhosa books. Anyone who would like to help establish the reading club by contributing a set of books to the school is heartily encouraged to make a donation to The Little Hands Trust. I believe that the cost per set is usually R90, but that depends on the print run, so I will confirm the amount and post the confirmed cost/set below…
Aims of The Little Hands Trust
• To support initiatives that promote reading for enjoyment.
• To mentor African literary artists, including writers, illustrators and editors, to produce creative, suitable and appropriate children’s storybooks for children of various ages with a focus on early childhood (ages 0 to 9 years).
• To collaborate with African publishers to increase and sustain publication of children’s books in African languages. To initiate and support translations of stories between African languages, from African languages to ex-colonial languages and from ex-colonial languages to African languages.
• To help to orientate and educate adults in the importance and significance of reading to and with children.
