The Last Rhino

The Last Rhino is an exciting story featuring the 12-year-old Ndlovu twins, Ruth and Rudi,whose father is the Chief Ranger at the iMfolozi Game Reserve in Zululand.

The twins return home from school for the summer holidays and soon find themselves involved in the war against poachers who are killing rhinos for their horn, which fetches astronomical prices in the Far East.

There are square-lipped White Rhinos (the grazers) and black rhinos (who are browsers, living on the green leaves of trees and numerous other edible plants). There is only one Black Rhino remaining at iMfolozi so the game rangers are particularly keen to protect it and its calf.

The twins are in for a big surprise when they learn that an elderly family relative of the Ndlovu’s, who has just retired from the NASA Space Agency in the United States, has come to live within the iMfolozi Game reserve and has built a unique bubble car in his underground laboratory. Professor Nyembezi has developed the properties of anti- magnetism for the bubble car’s swift propulsion.

The twins befriend the elderly professor who is called upon to help protect the last of the rhinos and to halt the poachers who are killing the Rhinos and cutting off their horn.

Thanks to the bubble car, the twins find themselves, together with their father and the professor, in an adventure that takes them to Hong Kong and Beijing in their quest to halt the crushing of the rhino horn and its sale at high prices in its powder form.

There is hardly a dull moment in this fast-moving narrative, with a surprise ending that makes exciting reading for young people, particularly those aged between 9 and 14.

Author: John Tungay