While I was researching early South African children's books, I came across a book that hinted at an intriguing story. Little Veld Folk by Cecil J. Shirley (1943), published by the CNA (Central News Agency) in Cape Town, contained a foreword by a prominent Rhodesian, Mr W.D. Gale, of Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, in which he pointed out that it was written and illustrated by a man “without either arms or legs”. The frontispiece is a photograph of Shirley, seated at his worktable and easel in the veld.

Little Veld Folk consists of twelve articles and stories for young children about animals and birds of Rhodesia, based on Shirley's observations and experiences. He illustrated them with black-and-white drawings that compare well with those in other South African children's books of the time. His book was one of the last in a tradition of illustrated books in English about little South African animals going back to Fact and Fancy from the Veld by F.D. (1910), which combined nature study with fiction and verse to entertain young readers. Other notable early ones were Some South African Insects, Described in Rhyme with Nature Notes for a Southern Clime, by James MacKay (1915), published by P. Davis in Durban, and a series of three volumes by Sydney Skaife (1928) called The Adventures of John Harmer, published by Maskew Miller in 1928, in which a boy is reduced in size to the scale of the birds, fish and insects that he visits in turn.

Some of the dozens of South African English children's stories published in the first half of the twentieth century were fantasies about little creatures in which the animals are anthropomorphised. An example by another male author was Tales of the Veld Folk for the Kiddies by E.G. Ridley, who was billed on the title page as “Major E.G. Ridley, M.C.” (s.a.). His book was published by another South African publisher active in those years, A.C. White of Bloemfontein. Two years after Little Veld Folk (Shirley 1943), Herbert Leviseur (1945) published a book of fairy stories, Desert Magic, about the creatures that he encountered while serving in the South African armed forces in the desert campaign in North Africa, which created a minor sensation in South Africa. Shirley's and Leviseur's books, both published by the CNA, were similar in size and appearance.