Rock the Boat branches out with Afrikaans title

Oneworld imprint Rock the Boat has acquired Jaco Jacobs’ A Good Day for Climbing Trees, a “funny, warm-hearted” middle grade novel about a South African boy who stages a sit-in to save a tree.

Commissioning editor Shadi Doostdar pre-empted world English rights on the eve of the fair.

Written in Afrikaans, the title was one of four winners of BookTrust’s new children’s books in translation initiative, In Other Words.