Books published by publisher umSinsi Press

As a child, the South African author and some friends experimented with an Ojija board. This led him on a journey of everyday magic, and exposure to African culture and magical interaction with the spirit world of the ancestors. In this parable for African spirituality, he shares his knowledge of the phenomenon and invites the reader to wander into the unknown.

Geoff Foster is a teenager like thousands, approaching his final school exams and hoping to go to university. Unlike many of them, he faces two complications. Firstly, he is disabled, paralysed down the left side of his body and prone to health problems. Secondly, his family is falling apart. The combined effect pitches him into a turmoil of confusion, fear and illness that threatens to destroy him. This emotionally intense story tells of Geoff's struggle to find his road and his direction in a life that seems destined to go nowhere - to learn to trust in friendship; to believe in himself and in his dreams. On the surface, it is a story about disability - but it goes beyond that to touch the common thread of isolation which defines the road taken by many otherwise apparently 'normal' lives.

Sally-Fay's contented peaceful life is thrown upside down when her father remarries his business partner who has a clever confident son of Sally Fay's own age. So that the family starts off knowing each other and bonding, her father books a short holiday in a guest farm on the Lesotho border. Sally Fay is desperately unhappy with her new brother and her mother and goes off a lot on her own, into the mountains where the San people once lived. It is whilst she is walking here that she finds a piece of jasper and picks it up, unaware at the time that it is an ancient San artefact which connects her with a San family and in particular with the lovely young medicine woman, Kamma, who has great wisdom and helps Sally Fay to make the adjustments she needs to make, in order to be happy.

Kajol Periram was 13 years old when she wrote these three delightful stories mainly aimed at younger children or all children who had retained their love of magic, magical beings and who themselves have fertile imaginations.The first story deals with the decline of the number of people who believe in fairies. Until they discover things that lead them to believe that fairies may exist after all.The second story follows the maturating of a young dinosaur named Miraculous. As Miraculous matures he discovers that a lot can be achieved if we practice empathy.The Forest fairies in the third story help the forest animals to prepare for winter by banding together to help one another. They are shown that one’s weakness can be sorted out by another’s strength.