The Little People of the Kalahari- Young Adult

[Moose.H]

So here I am at the beginning of 2021, a whole lot less promise than this time 2020. This year shows much less chance of a broken promise.

I need to up my game despite harder challenges. I am seeking a Beta reader for “The Little People of the Kalahari”. It had a rough start a year back, bad assumptions, and a whole lot more editing has occurred directly and through 3^rd parties. We have many Covid conns here where every man, woman and hamster who has a pc and Grammerly is now an editor, another tale for another time…….

I am not looking for a pat on the back but rather an honest cut and thrust, surgical strike that can take this book somewhere.
Many thanks
Moose.H

[ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord]

Genre/blurb?

[Darren White]

H.Moose. See this post:
https://www.writingforums.com/threads/178338-READ-THIS-FIRST-BETA-READER-REQUESTS
Could you please provide all details, thank you.

[Moose.H]

It is 30k words, Young Adult fantasy fiction adventure.

A series of 12 tales where several close friends live, work and survive in their clan deep in the wilderness Kalahari Desert. Their home is a converted termite mound overlooking a perennial pan.

They are Kalahari gnomes, an ancient people just larger than meerkats, and the sophistication of the San peoples.

Little People of the Kalahari Synopsis
Adventures of a clan of Gnomes spanning a year in the harsh conditions of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana.
The adventures are centred around the joys, frustrations, and antics of several adolescent gnomes. Murr, Gnu-nu, Wikkie, Jubbalie, and Roc are coming of age and getting on with living in the harsh beauty of the Kalahari.
Short in stature, they are agile and fast, they work in tightly knit groups to forage, hunt, and provide for their clan. They defend their mound and territory from all the threats of the African wilderness.
Their home is in an old termite mound occupied and remodelled many generations back before the climate harshened. Their home overlooks a perennial pan that is the life source that sustains them with water even in the harshest of droughts. Travelling away from this source of life into the deeper wilderness becomes a serious undertaking that is regularly necessary and requires considerable planning.
They have adapted as did the San people, storing water in ostrich eggs, seeking roots for water, creating natural medicines, and defeating threats. Being very small they have had to become innovative, faster, and more nimble than the San.
They do, however, possess an earth magic and use it sparingly to great advantage when absolutely necessary.
There is a little romance, much humour, some tragedy, and a fair amount of politics that makes for the tough life of Kalahari Gnomes.
They have adapted over eons and are very different from the Gnomes of the Western Cultures who would have been extinct eons ago trying to survive in this environment.

[utah_biker]

Hi Moose.H, I'd be happy to beta read the story for you.