Puku – Children’s Literature Foundation

Established in 2009, Puku Children’s Literature Foundation (Puku) is a reading promotion and book development organisation that aims to address the acute shortage of children’s literature in all South African languages, and ensure that all children have access to such literature, particularly the most materially deprived and marginalized.
Puku aims to build a comprehensive, credible review process that will ensure quality reviews in all languages and to serve as a data hub to promote the buying and reading of books that affirm the African child.
“In the few years of our existence as Puku, we have come across amazing creativity and innovation in our communities. There is no reason why we should not have a thriving publishing industry that addresses the needs of our children and their families. We aim to grow a comprehensive and well curated database of African children’s books to assist in this regard,” says Elinor Sisulu, founder of Puku and Festival Director of the Puku Afri-kids Festival and the Puku Story Festival.
Puku works with publishers, authors, illustrators, artists, reviewers, teachers and corporate South Africa to get well written and translated books into the hands of parents, teachers, librarians, and children. What happens after the reviews? Puku’s biggest priority is to get the parents to visit the website and identify the books that may be relevant to their children and ways to access them.
Puku’s distinctive competence is in its specialist reviewers who are experts in early literacy, education, reading and writing in African languages.
Puku also organises story Festivals around the country to spread the love of reading. It is a collaborative initiative that facilitates and fosters cooperation amongst and between rights holders, promoters, disseminators and consumers of children’s literature – with a specific focus on indigenous languages.
Puku has recently launched a new online African children’s literature resource at www.puku.co.za. With over 6000 books, profiled authors and publishers, this useful resource is set to become the go-to for all local children’s literature. A new development for Puku will be introduction of blogs by specialist reviewers on its website. They will share their experiences of the review process, including the conversations they had with parents, children and learners while reviewing books. As specialists in education, reading and writing, they will also share tips on teaching reading and writing.
Newly appointed managing editor Lorato Trok is excited to be joining Puku. “I have been involved in children’s literacy all my professional life as a children’s librarian, a children’s books publisher, an editor, author of children’s books and as a translator. Promotion of African languages has taken centre stage in my work and I’m excited to join this wonderful team of people who have been working really hard to bring to the fold what is available in African languages for children in South Africa and beyond.”

visit www.puku.co.za for more.