The White Giraffe

Author(s): Lauren St John

Location(s): South Africa

Genre(s): Children

Era(s): timeless

The first of Lauren St John’s heartwarming White Giraffe series, featuring the adventures of a young orphan girl and a magical white giraffe in exotic Africa.

When she is eleven years old, Martine is orphaned and sent to live with her grandmother on a game reserve in South Africa. Her grandmother seems strangely unwelcoming and Martine has a difficult time settling in at her new school, where she is conspicuously an outsider. But she has an ally in Tendai – one of the keepers on the reserve, from whom she learns the lore and survival techniques of the bush, and in Grace – who instantly senses there is something special about Martine.

There are secrets about Sawubona (the reserve) just waiting to be revealed, and rumours too about a fabled white giraffe – a trophy for hunters everywhere. One night Martine, lonely and feeling slightly rebellious too, looks out of her window and see a young albino giraffe – silver, tinged with cinnamon in the moonlight. This is the beginning of her mysterious and magical adventures – her discovery of her gift of healing and a secret valley that she travels to with the giraffe, where she’ll find clues about her past and future.

Above all it’s is a heart-warming story, full of charm and atmosphere, and Martine’s sheer delight in her giraffe friend and the fantastic landscape which is theirs to explore.

Featured in Wildlife and Wanderlust: A Tiny TripFiction Booklist
Featured in Tiny TripFiction’s Summer Reading Challenges 2021

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