“I can highly recommend this book for ALL ages. The author’s love and knowledge of animals shines through strongly and her experience living in Africa, U.K. and Asia contributes extensive local knowledge which excites and educates the reader and provides a memorable setting for the book’s main characters. This is equally matched by her love for humanity and every living thing which infiltrates throughout the book leaving the reader pondering many of life’s conundrums. This story is so suitable for today’s fast pace… shared factually and creatively to spellbind every reader. This read will transport the reader to sunny climes across the oceans in a plethora of eventualities. I will be looking out for the movie.”
– Diane Durrant BA. Hons, Cert Ed, RSA Dip SPLD
“Reading this story gave me a unique, imaginative experience. GustoSinga links love of the natural world with man’s best and worst. I think it is a valuable allegory teaching youth to look beyond the appearance of things – deeper into the significance. Some people may say it is a little anthropomorphising, (putting human qualities into another species), but that is imagination. As Author, you were drawing out particular qualities and asking us to understand that life is more than the appearance and that imagination fires reality in a way.
“We don’t know the half of what communications are going on with life around us. That’s what’s so tragic. We don’t allow the animals to speak to us, as we are all too busy. If we listen intuitively – I call it ‘insperience’, not experience – selecting what one can, as we can’t take in the whole. We all absorb and take in different things from the moments given to us. This is what makes us so different and unique – the template for what wisdom comes afterwards… listening intuitively.
“GustoSinga highlights learning to reconcile the peacefulness of allowing nature to exist. It is as if there is a competition for space – the animals to be themselves for enriching our lives. Why do we hunt? What makes man kill? Can that be turned around – that passion and intensity to be turned towards love and reconciliation? Humanity – our fullest humanity when given to us genetically when the dance of the chromosomes happens at our conception, can be made real through our lives when our hidden potentiality becomes what our Creator intends us to be. Life is a question, and how we respond in the here and now is what being really human is all about.”
– Prof Robin Broadhead
Paediatric Specialist (past Principal @ College of Medicine/British Artist)
“Story telling has always been the best way to communicate a message, and the message from Marguerite’s latest book is loud and clear. GustoSinga offered a very different way of looking at the animal kingdom from the Attenborough type of documentaries or the Disney cartoons. Marguerite’s writing seems to have that magical power of giving life and personality to animals without turning them into cartoon characters. At times, it can become difficult to separate the fiction from facts due to the Author’s well-researched materials about life in the wilderness. Adding a Singapore flavour to it, especially for a theme as well known as the last tiger of Singapore also reminds Singaporeans that this concrete jungle was not always concrete. I enjoyed the story telling throughout and was humbled by how the animal society can teach us a thing or two about how to be civilised.”
– Chia Choong Kiat (Head of I.T. ACS Intl Singapore) M. Ed
‘Geography Teacher from the Urban Jungle of Singapore who really wants to visit the Great African Rift Valley’
“GustoSinga expresses a compelling message that is so timely. Never before on planet earth have we been as interconnected as we are today. Yet while technology races apace, GustoSinga reminds us we have a shared humanity of love, hope and unshakeable optimism.”
– Rebecca Mok
TOK Co-ordinator – Singapore Ex Headteacher, Head of English Dept
Author of English Grammar Educational Books
“GustoSinga takes a new slant on how man and nature interact and is a definite read for both pleasure and inspiration.”
– Kerr Fulton-Peebles, M.Edu
Principal, Esperance Ang. Community School, W Australia
“Among the greatest challenges we face as a civilization is educating our young people to value the natural environment and to accept a role in ensuring effective stewardship of the planet we call home. With climate change denial, ‘populist’ governments removing protections, and environmental degradation caused by uncontrolled growth, the positive message of protecting Mother Earth can get lost. Using a story grounded in personal experiences, author and educator Marguerite MacLean’s GustoSinga takes the message directly to children, giving them the ability to read with their own eyes a fictional story with a non-fiction message.
“Despite veering perilously close to the European saviour of Africa (and Asia) fantasy with heroes of European heritage, MacLean creates characters, both human and animal, with whom many children will identify. With a movie in the offing, GustoSinga brings imagination to African and Asian contexts, while creating a beautiful dream to counter the nightmare of habitat loss.”
– Wayne Burnett, Ed.D.
(Played as Prosper) Proud father of Kaymin and Nelsin
GustoSinga is available as Paperback and Kindle and Audio on Amazon.