10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is a toching story about a black family in South africa, 11 Nov 2001
By A Customer
This book is a can't put down book .It gives the reader an insight into the lives of many black south african Familys.I Advise you to go out and buy this book before its too late .
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent book, 3 April 2009
This review is from: Journey to Jo'burg: A South African Story (New Longman Literature 11-14) (Paperback)
This is a really empathetic book that I have used with children aged 9 and 10. It gives them a great feel for racism and the horrific prejudice that people have faced, and in some cases, still do face. I thoroughly recommend this book...
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Now there are no more apartheid laws... But Naledi and Tiro's story still carries many echoes., 2 Oct 2010
A short chapter book that was written in the 1980s by an exile from South Africa who wanted to tell children, through a story, what apartheid really meant for black children growing up under its sway.
Like Alan Paton in "Cry, the Beloved Country", Naidoo uses the device of a simple country person travelling to the city to depict the condition of South Africa. In her case, the innocent abroad is Naledi, a girl travelling with her younger brother to find their mother, who works as a maid for a rich white family, to call her back to her village to attend to her sick baby.
For Naledi, this is a journey from ignorance to adult knowledge as she encounters, blow after hammer-blow, the realities of racial segregation, pass laws, police brutality and the huge disparity in wealth separating rich whites from the black majority.
The central section of the book offers some relief to all this through friendship and family reunion, while filling in some of the political background to the story. But Naledi must face one more shocking truth before we leave her reflecting on her new understanding of her political situation and nurturing a hard-won hope for the future.
A fine children's book, all the more powerful for its plain, direct, understated style. This simplicity suggests a book for younger children, but with its tough subject matter it is clearly aimed at older readers, perhaps 8 or 9 upwards.
The 1999 edition is bracketed with a foreword and postscript by Naidoo setting the story in its context. Apartheid is no more, but the damage it has done to South Africans will take a long time to heal, while the story carries many echoes of other times and places where people are segregated by wealth, caste, race or religious allegiance.
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