Don and Patricia

Don and Patricia Today was a kick back day. The winds were still going full force. When the wind is fierce, the cable car does not run up to Table Mountain. It is the same when the clouds cover the mountain and they call it the tablecloth. It was not an uninteresting day nevertheless. We were able to share some time with Don and Patricia, to find that he is Associate Editor of Get Away magazine, each issue a hefty 250 pages and distributed to over 80 countries. Their web site is http://www.getawaytoafrica.com/ . In his past life, he was a Ph.D. Criminologist and published works in that field, having done some groundbreaking work with gangs. When a change in careers presented itself, he moved into the area he relishes: travel. He is not only the Associate Editor, but also a multifaceted, accomplished travel writer. He researches and writes a number of articles for the magazine, as well as books including Blue Ice: Travels in Antarctica and African Journeys and he also is the photographer for many of his articles. Patricia, also an author, has nine children’s books published and three adult novels. She started with children’s books: Thobile’s Dream, Thobile and the Tortoises, Thobile and the Bulbuls, Thobile and the Alien Mountain, Thobile in Tsakana, and Thobile’s Field Guide to the Eastern Cape. Thobile is a young black man of African descent who is living in England and due to a dream (the first book) has decided to visit Africa to discover more of his heritage. She has other titles of poetry for children and written with children. One of her adult novels, Skyline, is going to be made into a motion picture as a joint British/South African venture. Patricia told us she has three more adult novels plotted out before she returns to the children’s genre. Some of the books above are available on Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk. Search for Don Pinnock or Patricia Pinnock. You may also find other results if you search for Patricia Schonstein Pinnock. As white South Africans, with souls of peace and social justice ingrained in them, they formed a publishing company called African Sun Press. The charge of this company was to publish literature for children based on stories of Black Africans, retelling the values of the people. The profits from this publishing venture are then put back into literacy programs in the schools, where the books were provided. Patricia shared that most public schools in South Africa do not have a library. Most families cannot afford to nor do they think about buying books for pleasure for children, to increase their knowledge of the world around them. We walked the neighborhood in a different direction and checked out a different café. It was a chore since the wind was again horrendous. They have glass walls on two sides of their outdoor patio to block some of the wind, so we sat outside. We heard this crash and one of the industrial plastic garbage bins that the restaurant uses, went flying in the wind, though seemingly half filled with trash. That attested to the power of the wind. Patricia and Don were going to a movie that night and asked if we would like to join them, but it was too lazy a day to venture out again. I had started working on the vocabulary for Ragtime for teaching it next semester by scanning the whole book and listing words. I will then scan it again for characters and make notes of the people. I started reading The Gold Coast. Patricia has also given me seven of her books to look over. I have quite a bit of reading to do.

Pin It Now!