Welcome to Fauna Park Tales!

Here we blog about things to do with animals, birds, children and all the good things which happen around us.  My name is Maretha Botha and I’ve written and illustrated four books in the series to date. This series is primarily written for Middle Grade, striving to bridge the gap between Early Readers and Picture Books.  Each book in the series has approximately thirty illustrations – hopefully keeping the interest of better readers between 9-13 years, providing an enjoyable, reading experience!

At present the books are available as eBooks and black-and-white paperbacks.  I’m working on a plan to get the paperbacks in colour as well.  Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy the photos!

1.  Here is a smiling young reader with the first three books of Fauna Park Tales.  Her class enjoyed listening to stories from book one, called Flame and Hope: An African Adventure is available for sale.

2.  Here are  few pictures of the books and some of the characters.3. This is the area in Botswana which inspired the setting for Fauna Park Tales.  Here is the real ‘Plump-Grump’ – a goat who knows what he wants when it comes to eating in the best spot! And this is the area where we lived for three years before emigrating to the United Kingdom.

Kgali Hill in the backgroundThis big bull – inspiration for Mafuta, ‘the big one’ – in book four and the rest of his herd often stopped by at our fence at night to drink water from our hosepipe which we kept ready for them.  They came and went like ghosts in the night.

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This donkey is the inspiration behind Dudu – a rescue donkey who plays an important role in book three.The road into the village situated next to a game reserve.  The ‘Molodi Valley’ of Fauna Park Tales has a road like this one, leading in and out of the valley.  Notice the ‘Llokodi Hills’ in the background.  This photos was taken during the dry season when finding suitable grazing for the cattle and goats becomes a challenge.

This large African Acacia is bare in winter, but this is where Hope the narrator perches – just outside the backdoor.  If you look carefully, you’ll spot a crimson-breasted shrike in the next photo.

This acacia was struck by lightning the next summer – split in two – it finally succumbed to nature  and came crashing down on one of our cars. Notice the height of the tree above our roof top.

If you want to know more about me and my books, please visit my author page at http://myBook.to/Friends

and Fauna Park Tales – the Series https://www.facebook.com/flameandhope.co.uk 

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My hometown, Worcester in the Western Cape – August 2018- Photo from Facebook