South African illustrator takes home international literary award

A renowned Cape Town artist and a Ghanaian writer have bagged the internationally sought-after Children’s Africana Book Awards (CABA) for their book‚ Grandma’s List.

Toby Newsome illustrated the story‚ which was written by Portia Dery. The book is a colorful story of an 8-year-old Ghanaian girl named Fatima‚ who wants to save the day by helping her grandmother complete her list of errands around the house. But she loses the list and tasks herself with remembering what was written on it. And here the adventure begans.

Newsome said he was excited about how things turned out.

“I am very proud of the outcome. Portia did well on writing the story; all I had to do was illustrate it. I hope that through this we have contributed to something bigger. And of course‚ it took some work and research to bring Ghana alive in the illustrations‚” Newsome said.

As a manuscript‚ Grandma’s List was submitted to the Golden Baobab Prize in 2014‚ and was the winner of the Picture Book prize that year.

It won the 2018 CABA Young Children’s category along with books from international publishers Penguin Random House‚ Candlewick Press and Lantana Publishing and a few others