When the book, Sikulu and Harambe By the Zambesi River came through the mail a few days ago, Darrius was estastic when he saw me holding the package and asked me who is it for? I told him that it was for him and he tried to snatched it off my hands and pestered me to open it up! The book, not only came in hard cover but filled with colorful illustrations too! Darrius was very interested and kept asking me what is this and that while flipping the pages.
Darrius will turn 3 next month and I find that this book came just in time for me to start teaching him more of some basic life values. This book is the first series of adventures written by Kunle Ogueneye that follow two friends, Sikulu the spider and Harambe the hippo as they travel throughout Africa. In this book, both Sikulu and Harambe brought about the reinforces in values of kindness and compassion in a form of African fokelore.
In our current advanced society, many a time I noticed a lot of youngsters are lacking in core essential life values. Unlike the time when we are kids, we were always taught by our parents to be kind, polite and helpful to others (even strangers) and not to expect any rewards in return.
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In this story, Sikulu and Harambe shown us the perfect example of kindness to others when they rescued the village woman’s clothing from the fast moving Zambezi River. Though she has tried to asked other animals along the river to help but none wanted to stop and help except Sikulu and Harambe. The other animals were just too busy and too preoccupied with their own lives to take the time to stop to help and be kind.
Many a time we found ourselves in such situation but we never bother since we are so used growing up with ‘doing something for something’ which turned us into materialistic snobs where we will only help if we are given something in return for our effort.
Since I am a mother now, I felt it is my prerogative to teach my boy and instill him with all the essential core values while he is at his growing up stage. It is extremely important that he learns such moral values so he will grow up to be more appreciative, kind and compassionate towards others.
I personally find this book very well written with interesting and the colorful illustration helps young kids to grasp the meaning of expressing kindness to others with an open heart. The part where Sikulu went all the out to help the old woman despite his own fear really depict the actual act of kindness which we should learn to practice. Besides that, we get to learn a few new African words as well as the culture of the Zambian people along the way!
Would you like to get a copy of this wonderful book? You can WIN it now! The author has been so kind to offer to provide one winner with an autographed copy of the book as well as either a Sikulu the Spider or Harambe the Hippo stuffed toy! (How I wish I could participae cause I simply love the cute stuff toys!)
In order to win, head on over to the Sikulu website and leave me a comment on what you liked about the site, be it the trivia, the story itself, a fact about the author or whatever you enjoyed most when you visited the site. If you have a blog, blog about this giveaway and link it back to this post, you will then be entitled to an additional entry to win. This giveaway is open to all my readers. 
The giveaway begins today and will end on Sunday, 2nd November. A lucky winner will be chosen and I will post the winner’s name sometime on the following week. The prize will be sent directly by the sponsor all the way from the US! So hurry!
However, if you did not get to participate in this giveaway, you can always purchase this book from the online book store @ $14.99 a copy. Since Christmas is round the corner, this book will be a good choice as Christmas gift for your kids or your friends’ kids!
Tonight will be Halloween and since we don’t celebrate the event here we can always celebrate with food! *Ah heaven!*
