Writer, artist, children’s book illustrator and proud mother of four boys. All of these are wrapped up in one splendid package named Kirsty-Jean Benning, a Zimbabwean artist who recently launched her children’s book titled ‘Bo and the Whale Shark’. Kirsty has a deep love for nature and channelled her passion into her children book which has been met with acclaim and fast sales.

We caught up with the talented artist to get more insight into her work and her graduation into authorship. ^{*KM – Kudzai Mhangwa, KJ – Kudzai Mhangwa}

KM: Hello Kirtsy-Jean, I am so pleased to have you for the magazine. Please introduce yourself.

KJ: I am a mum of four boys and I’ve recently published my first children’s book titled ‘Bo and the Whale Shark’ which I wrote and illustrated. It took me five years to complete as I had no experience in illustration prior to this book. It took a lot of courage and belief in myself to follow destruction and devastation I witnessed fuelled me – I could not sit back and do nothing and the gift I have is the ability to draw so I wanted to use my talent to draw attention to what is happening in our oceans – that we still have time to rewrite this horror story, we still have time to make a difference. At the very beginning of writing and sketching out this story, I hit rock bottom. I realised I had become addicted to sleeping pills and alcohol and it had sucked all the joy and purpose out of my life, leaving me feeling broken suicidal and full of shame.

But I luckily had a good friend in recovery who recognised the symptoms and I managed to get help at a treatment centre and start the slow process of rebuilding my life. I know without my journey to recovery and doing the 12 step program I would never have completed this book. I would not have had the courage and the belief in myself to attempt such a daunting project. I think as women we are so hard on ourselves. We tell ourselves all the time that we are not good enough.  And I had to change this tape that was on repeat in my mind and start playing something new. That I can follow my dreams, that my talent is good enough and that I can make a difference and do something meaningful.

KM: Among your many talents are your work as an illustrator and writer. When did you begin this creative journey?

KJ: The idea for this book came to me over five years ago and it was inspired by my youngest son Beau, who was obsessed with sharks. He also did not like me reading any of the beautiful story books I had at bed time. I was only allowed to read this one shark fact book which was quite boring. So I told him that I was going to write him his own story and it would be about sharks, in the hopes that he would fall in love with reading. I think my family thought this idea was quite crazy and would fizzle out fast given my lack of knowledge and expertise. But there is a quote that says “If you have a big enough reason why, you can overcome and endure almost anyhow.” I found my reason why when I started to research about the sharks in order to write this story. We are killing 100 million sharks a year through harmful industrial fishing practices, the shark in trade, loss of habitat and plastic pollution. That equates to over 10,000 sharks per hour every hour per day. At this rate we could witness the extinction of precious shark species in our lifetime and the consequences of that are catastrophic for our oceans perfectly balanced eco-system. I could not sit back and do nothing. I believe we can all make a difference to the world around us no matter how small and no matter our age.

KM: You recently released your children’s book ‘Bo and the Whale Shark’. What is the book about?

KJ: The book is about an ordinary boy who goes on an extraordinary, magical adventure with a whale shark. But like all adventure they require courage and perseverance; he needs to help save his new shark friend. Is he able to do so? With a little help from his friends, anything is possible. The story highlights the quote by Mother Theresa, “We can’t all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.” I want children to feel empowered when they read this book, that even though we are faced with big problems with the environment, climate change, animals facing mass extinction, each of us can do something small to help. And that when we all do something small, we can make a BIG difference. And never underestimate what small acts of love can do around the world.

KM: The book raises awareness on issues that whales face. What are some of the issues that these animals face?

KJ: It think one of the big issues sharks face is our misperception of them which I feel has been driven a lot by media and movies such as ‘Jaws’. A lot of us think that sharks are these dangerous scary killing machines. Yet there are over 500 different species of sharks and they range greatly in size, shape and colour. Only 30 species of sharks are known to have ever harmed a human and only about a dozen of these are considered dangerous when encountered. Sharks are not even on the top ten most deadly animals to man – and you are more likely to be killed by a deer than by a shark – which is crazy!

Sharks are vital to the oceans ecosystem, they maintain balance of marine life by regulating prey populations; without them the entire ecosystem is threatened.

A lot of sharks are on the brink of extinction. They need us to advocate for them. People only stand up for causes that hey love and believe in, so to stand up for sharks we first need to see their beauty, their intelligence and their importance to the oceans. That there are no oceans without sharks. So for me one of the big issues facing sharks is lack of awareness and misperceptions. Because only with awareness can we make changes, changes that are desperately needed.

KM: Why write a children’s book about these issues?

KJ: I like this question and I have a few reasons. Firstly children are not jaded by life yet. They still believe in goodness, in possibility, they believe they can make a difference and therefor they can. There are amazing children out there already doing incredible work to help save the environment and inspiring others to do the same. I also believe in life we are the sum of our habits. And something we have formed habits and beliefs that are negative and it takes a lot of effort to undo them. But if we start as children forming healthy habits, it can have profound effect on the world around us. Such as the simple habit of not buying plastic shopping bags at the grocery store but using reusable ones that we bring from home. You might think what this has got to do with sharks. It has a lot to do with sharks and the ocean. We use around 5 trillion plastic bags annually worldwide. That’s over one million bags every minute. Our oceans are becoming clogged with plastic. Scientists have estimated that whale sharks living near the coast of Indonesia are swallowing up to 127 pieces of plastic an hour. Which leads to suffocation and death. We can all reduce how much single-use plastic we use in our daily lives, especially when we become aware of the change it is doing to our oceans and that it is in our power to make a big difference in this area.

KM: How was the journey to get it published?

KJ: I was told many times that I would never get a publisher to publish me as I was an unknown. But I believe there is a power greater than ourselves and that this book was put on my heart for a reason. I just kept believing that something, somehow would happen and if I kept going, a door would open. I didn’t even know there were publishers in Zimbabwe so I had no idea how this was going to happen and when I started to look and feel quite hopeless; that there was no way I would ever find a publisher. I thought God put this story on my heart for a reason so if there’s no publisher out there then I would self-publish because I’m not going to stop.

I started to message around asking people for names of book designers and printers that they had used and one of the first numbers I messaged, unbeknownst was a publisher, he saw my pictures and said ‘can you come for a meeting now? I want to publish this book’ – and that’s how it happened. The door just opened. I think sometimes we don’t follow our dreams because we don’t know HOW it’s going to happen. But in my experience, you have to do the work first, the how will appear down the road, it’s not apparent at the beginning. As Rumi, ‘As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.’

KM: The book launch was held a few days ago. How was the response?

KJ: The book launch was incredible. I was blown away by the response. In less than two weeks we have sold out our first print run and I have to order 2000 more books.