Once again author and illustrator Jacqui Taylor has drawn inspiration from the animals, plants and images of Africa for this delightful book of verse. Children will love the bright colors, textures and detail in her illustrations, which are factual rather than fantastical and therefore educational, yet in a fun style. The verses themselves are rhythmical and make use of indigenous words in the context of the imagery. Also included is a section of fascinating facts that teach and ‘add value’ to the verses themselves.
Born and raised in Zimbabwe, Jacqui Taylor is author and an illustrator of A Hong Kong ABC (Publisher's Associates - Hong Kong), An African ABC, A Baobab is Big, Kubuka and the Magic Calabash (written by Janet Keegans) and Namakwa's Garden (written by Mary Clanahan), (Random House Struik - South Africa).
How I got started - "Whilst living in Hong Kong, when my son, Christopher, reached the age of about 2, I began to scour the book shops for children's books about Hong Kong. I found very little. So, I decided to make my son a one-off, personal book about the city of his birth featuring him and our cat. I carried my ABC sketch book with me everywhere and one day, at an open house where I was selling small water colours, a friend noticed what I was working on. She said that she would like a copy herself and other friends expressed the same wish. This prompted me to get a costing to print many copies. I soon found out that to make the unit cost reasonable required the printing of several thousand books. Nothing ventured... I borrowed a huge sum of money and printed 3 000 copies of the book!
The evening that the books were delivered I sold 6 copies of the book at a dinner party. The next day I took 10 copies down to the local video shop. They phoned me an hour later to say they needed more! The 50 I took them were sold by the next day. I took my book to gift fairs and before long had queues of people waiting to buy a copy and have theirs signed. Then the book shops contacted me. They had people coming in asking for my book, so they tracked me down. Within 6 weeks the Hong Kong ABC was on the South China Morning Post best seller list, I had done a radio interview and two newspaper and magazine interviews. After 8 weeks I had paid back my loan completely and 2 years later the book was taken over by Publishers Associates in Hong Kong. Although not very well publicised, it still sells in Hong Kong today and has sold around 35 000 copies to date.
No one was more surprised than I was that the book sold so well and it gave me the confidence and inspiration to continue with my new found career as a writer and illustrator. Since then I have produced "An African ABC", "A Baobab is Big", "The Queen of Green" and illustrated 2 other books".
Jacqui is currently working on A British ABC and several other small book projects. "The Queen of Green" was released by Random House Struik in early 2010. It is a book designed to help children (and adults!) understand the need to reuse, reduce, recycle and take care of the planet better... Look out for "An African ABC", "A Baobab is Big" and "The Queen of Green" as e-books on Amazon soon!
Jacqui has just self-published "123Me" - an English/Shona counting book for early learners. Soon to be released as an e-book too.
