How an 84-year-old northern beaches’ author turned story for her grandkids into a published book
An 84-year-old northern beaches grandmother has published her first children’s book after decades of writing stories to connect with her grandchildren living overseas.
She’s 84 years old and been telling stories her whole life.
Now Bertha Tobias, who calls the northern beaches home, has just published her first children’s book — Beyond the Mountains of Elbat.
The story, telling of the magical adventures of a young girl and a little brown quail, is one of many she wrote years ago as a way of keeping in touch with her five grandchildren who were living in various countries around the world.
Born in South Africa, near Cape Town’s beautiful Table Mountain, Bertha grew up to become an educationalist — someone specialising in the theories and methods of education — and teacher.
She was also a professional puppeteer in South Africa, staging shows in some of Cape Town’s poorest areas and using her puppets to raise money to support early childhood education.
After she, her husband Robert, and their three children emigrated to New Zealand in 1978, she expanded her interests in storytelling, puppetry and education and set up her own puppet-
company.
Bertha joined the New Zealand Guild of Storytellers, where she had a leadership role, and became a full-time volunteer at a centre for child and family guidance.
She studied at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch where she was awarded a Bachelor of Education and Teaching Certificate and went on to teach students from early childhood, primary, secondary, tertiary and adult classes.
At the university, Bertha established a course on Teaching through Storytelling and has previously published two text books on storytelling for teachers of young children.
She says her adventure fantasy novel Beyond the Mountains of Elbat is intended for
children aged six to 12.
Bertha, who arrived in Australia with the family in 2015, said she was partly spurred on to have her story published after her husband published a book earlier this about his father — “George Tobias, A Life of Service From Stretcher-bearer in World War 1 to Bishop of Namibia”.
She said her book tells the story of a young girl, Ngawai, and a little brown quail, who come together during a terrible drought to search for the goddess Maia to restore balance to the land of Uma.
“Their journey takes them far beyond the mountains, through magical lands where they meet
strange and wondrous creatures, face unexpected dangers and make extraordinary friendships. “Underlying the exciting story are subtle messages, which highlight the importance of friendship, personal courage, tolerance of differences and the importance of community
and collective action in the face of climate change.”
Bertha said her life and career “is all about story telling.” and she was “always writing stories”.
“My children all moved overseas, and then they had children. The only way to keep in touch with my grandchildren, at a distance, was to write them a story for their birthdays.
“I wrote them little stories, but this one developed further into a longer novel.
“It’s an amalgamation of all the places I’ve lived. The only reference is in the title because “Elbat” is table spelt backwards, which I did because I grew up in Cape Town, with Table Mountain.”
The book is now available to buy through most online book sellers including Amazon and Dymocks.
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Originally published as How an 84-year-old northern beaches’ author turned story for her grandkids into a published book
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