Two of George MacDonald's most popular books, The Princess and the Goblin and its sequel The Princess and Curdie, have been newly illustrated for a twenty-first century audience (while respecting their nineteenth century origins) and republished in beautiful hardcover editions, with forty-six and fifty full-color illustrations respectively.
These were G. K. Chesterton's favorite books of any genre, and have never been out of print since they were first published in 1872 and 1883. There are Penguin editions, for example. Enduring classics, these stories are simple enough for a child and yet—true to George MacDonald—so packed with spiritual depth that an adult could read them over and over and be blessed.
These new editions from the non-profit Walking Together Press are a fundraiser for African libraries.
The Backstory
In 2017, on a Facebook group devoted to C. S. Lewis and George MacDonald, I started seeing some intriguing posts. Entitled "Letters to Uncle Lewis," each post was an open letter to Lewis thanking him for a particular writing; for example, "Dear Uncle Lewis, thank you for writing The Problem of Pain. It has helped me deal with..." The posts were well-written, concise, heart-felt, and contained great insight into the Kingdom of God. Of course I had to know who the writer was. Lo, and behold, the author was a 20-year-old "kid" (said as a father with 20-year-old kids) from Jos, Nigeria, named Lengdung Tungchamma.
Lengdung and I quickly became friends and connected on many levels both personally and professionally. Over the next few months my wife and I chatted frequently with him about Jesus, about books, about life. In time, we saw that he and his friends started a library in their slum neighborhood called the Jenta Reads Community Library.
I first visited Lengdung and Jenta Reads in May of 2018, taking one hundred pounds of books to their tiny library, which was the *only* public library in a city of nearly a million people. Since then we have visited roughly once a year, our role being those of cheerleaders coming alongside this wonderful grassroots effort. Today there are multiple spin-off libraries throughout Jos and even in other cities.
A core activity of Jenta Reads is to "inculcate a reading culture" amongst the youth of Nigeria. They frequently speak in schools and communities and make a compelling case for reading. Unfortunately, the best concluding statement they can give is, "...and we have a library you can visit. It's ten miles that way..." This is because most schools and communities have no access to books. In a few cases the team has been able to make the speech and give a few boxes of random used books—which is better than nothing—but their true desire is to give The Chronicles of Narnia to every school, along with many other core titles. How could they do this?
In March of 2023, in partnership with Jenta Reads, we started a non-profit publishing company called Walking Together Press with the mission to support libraries and literacy in Africa. Our first major project is the Jenta Reads Essential Library, which is a collection of roughly 100 titles selected by the Jenta Reads team. About half of these are in the public domain, which means Walking Together Press can print them at low cost, while the other half (titles like The Chronicles of Narnia) can be purchased at wholesale. Now when the Jenta reads team gives the reading culture presentation, they can leave a free starter library behind.
All of the proceeds from these new George MacDonald editions go toward African library projects, starting with the Jenta Reads Essential Library goals for 2024-2025, which is to send fifty starter libraries to Jos, Nigeria.
For more information and to purchase go here
