Sunday November 23, 2008
Lim launches new book
KUCHING: Nonah, or The Ghost of Gunung Mulu, is the intriguing title of the latest children’s book by Sarawakian author Margaret Lim.
The book, which was launched here yesterday, is the fourth in a series featuring Payah, the little Kayan heroine whom Lim introduced in her first book in 2005.
In this tale, Payah makes a new friend Nonah, a Malay girl who has just moved from her coastal home in Santubong to Payah’s village in the jungles of Baram.
The girls enter a story-writing competition and win a trip to Gunung Mulu National Park where they uncover a plot involving a ghost and a rare orchid.
The write stuff: Lim showing her latest children’s book. Lim said the book reflected Sarawak’s rich multi-cultural heritage as well as its natural wonders.
“I’m drawing children from different communities into my idyllic world. It shows children from different races living in harmony,” she said after launching the book at Jambu Restaurant.
Proceeds from the book launch were donated to the Sarawak Children’s Cancer Society.
Besides Nonah, Payah’s other friends are Usun, a fellow Kayan, and Precious Jade, a Chinese girl.
Lim added that there was plenty of materials in Sarawak’s natural world and history for stories.
“I’m working on a picture book for children using endangered creatures. I’m also rewriting a story about pirates that my seventh uncle wrote a long time ago,” she said.
As for Payah, Lim said she would be leaving the series temporarily in order to focus on her other writing projects.
“I feel that she’s grown as the series has progressed, not physically but as a person she’s a little wiser.
“However, I haven’t come up with any new ideas for another Payah story. Perhaps we’ll see more of her in the future,” she said, adding that she hoped Payah would one day become well-known as a homegrown Sarawakian heroine.
The earlier titles in the series are Payah, Four Eyes and Precious Jade and Turnip Head.
Lim has also written a children’s play titled Jump, Bilun, Jump!, which is based on the familiar folktale of a mousedeer outwitting the crocodiles by counting them.
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