Lauri Kubuitsile, Botswana

Story: Lorato and her Wire Car
Winner, The Golden Baobab Prize Best Story for ages 8-11 years

Wire cars are a common toy made by children in Botswana. They are made from various bits of recycled rubbish such as drink cans and fencing wire. Lorato’s wire car is special. She has added windows made from plastic drink bottles and fake leather seats made from an old handbag. She spends all of her spare time looking for things to add to her car. She likes the way the other children watch her when she drives her wire car down the paths of the village; she maybe likes it a bit too much. When the troublesome Motshereganye adds real working lights to his car, no one wants to look at Lorato and her wire car anymore. She throws her wire car away in frustration until her enemy shows her that it’s about more than fake leather seats and working lights.

Ivor W. Hartmann, Zimbabwe

Story: Mr. Goop
Winner, The Golden Baobab Prize Best Story for ages 12-15 years

Mr. Goop is a speculative science-fiction teenage tale of the future. Set in Harare, Zimbabwe, it tells the story of a young boy called Tamuka Zimudzi living in an apocalyptic post-climate change world. A world that has lost a significant portion of its land mass to rising sea levels, where laboratory created humanoid life-forms are now slaves to humans, where people live in enormous sealed arcologies by necessity. Yet in this hard new world Tamuka lives with the same hopes, fears and dreams of any twelve year-old boy, and takes his first steps towards becoming an adult.

Aisha Kibwana, Kenya

Story: Strange Visitors that took her Life Away
Winner, The Golden Baobab Promising Writer Prize