Patrick Achitabwino articles

Inculcating a reading and knowledgeable culture in children calls upon the availability of necessary information resources written in the taste and style than can appeal to the interest of children. In Cecelia Dube Loti’s Baby Animals, nursery and primary school teachers and even parents who like teaching their children to read and write the queens language, have found a good companion.

The 22-page book knitted with illustrations of animals and their names provides children an insight into the animal kingdom. It can probably be called the dictionary of names of baby animals.

The exciting part of the book is that it is written in prose format hence making it easy for children to read as the contents can as well be recited. In the book, Loti endeavors to teach children 22 baby names of some of the common animals. The first page teaches a child that the name of a baby dog is a puppy.

An element that appears to be of great and admirable appeal to children is that the book is written in such a way that after a baby animal introduces itself, it questions another baby animal on the other page of the book its name. That skill entices a child to go ahead to find the answer. At the end, a young reader finds answers to the baby names of the animals through the answers of other baby animals.

What can also arouse the interest of children in the book are the colourful illustrations done by Tofara Dikani. They all portray the baby animals in their infant stages. Surely, as children are young they also like young-like creatures like toys.

Further beyond, the additional art of putting all the illustrations contained in the book on the cover page but without their names offers the children an opportunity to relate the baby animals to their names while the book is covered. They could in the end refer to the actual pages for corrections.

By the time a child finishes reading the book he/she would have learnt names of baby animals for the following big animals: dog, cat, lion, sheep, pig, hen, cock, bird, eagle, horse, tadpole, duck, goose, butterfly, deer, bull, cow, goat, swan, hawk, and hare.

It is worthy mentioning that though the book is meant for children it is not logical enough to restrict it to them. Definitely, not many adults know all the baby names of animals written in the book. Having a glimpse at it can equip adults with knowledge of the baby names hence responding accurately in case children ask one some of the baby names of the animals written in the book.


Of course the book would have been much better if the baby animals had been arranged in the book in alphabetical since children easily follow alphabet. It could have provided them an easy task of easy learning through twinning its contents to the alphabet. However, that having been said, the book remains a vital resource in enriching vocabulary of children and adult learners. The author can only be encouraged to consider the baby animals story as a series to provide a more wider insight into name s of many other animals left uncovered in the book.

‘Baby animals’ has been published by the National Library Service and it is edition number 32 in its Werengani series. Werengani series is a series of books meant to enrich reading habits of primary school age children. The National Library Service embarked on the series to alleviate effects of the chronic absence of suitable reading materials written and produced with the Malawian child in mind.

The motive of authoring the book can be achieved if it is made available to children through their school libraries. The advantage is that publishers of the book, National Library Service distribute books for free to primary, secondary and tertiary institutions. School librarians will do their pupils justice by acquiring the book freely from the publishers.