The story of friendship brings inclusion and diversity into children’s literature, while highlighting the fight to officially recognise sign language in South Africa.

 

Mpumi and Jabu’s Magical Day is a recently released children’s book by Lebohang Masango, a social anthropologist and the author of Mpumi’s Magic Beads, and Claudine Storbeck, the director and associate professor of the Centre for Deaf Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. 

The collaboration follows two children who meet on a playground and go off on an adventure. One, Mpumi, has magic beads that allow her to fly over the city with her friends. The other is Jabu, a Deaf boy looking for friendship, who helps the other children understand Deaf culture and South African sign language (SASL). 

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