Lina, the Duiker & the Dragonfly

<p>Lina accompanies her grandfather into the forest to search for healing plants when they meet up with a game warden who tells them about poachers’ snares that he has discovered. Lina is told to wait and sit on a rock while her grandfather, Pa’Tuusi, and the warden look for the snares. She is frightened of being alone; she can’t ‘talk’ to the animals the way her grandfather does, but then a dragonfly attracts her attention and she follows it to find a little duiker caught in a snare. She loses her way, but elephants help her and the duiker find their way back to her grandfather. The story is intriguing, with a slight amount of tension to keep it interesting.<br>Says author Lisa Steyn: ‘South Africa has so many cultures that have deep historic connections to the land and nature, and that is what inspired me to tell a contemporary story of a little girl of Khoekhoe descent, who’s grandfather still knows some of the ancient ways ... the nearly inexplicable connection that the First People of this land had with their environment, and some still have, seems to me like pure natural magic.’</p>