Starred Review for Kirkus Reviews (Thu Dec 28 00:00:00 CST 2023)

What does it look like when ordinary citizens resist government oppression?This graphic novel examines several decades of pre-apartheid resistance and rebellion in South Africa, beginning with early-20th–century discriminatory laws intended to restrict Asian immigration and ending with the miners' strike of 1946. With the exception of the final chapter, the work explores social change and resistance through legal cases, many of them forgotten in dusty files in the basement of the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein, in the process amplifying many voices that were largely unknown to history. Each chapter highlights a different act of resistance, telling hard stories honestly and without sensationalism. Zeroing in tightly on a 40-year span allows the book to examine complex historical nuances and feature the voices of ordinary, working-class people and long-standing communities like the Royal Bafokeng Nation who were activists for change. The source material dictated a different approach to the final chapter on the miners' strike, which is enhanced with striking photographs and features composite characters based on knowledge of life at the time. The illustrators' rich, evocative artwork in a variety of styles and color palettes adds layers of texture and context to the primary source documents, bringing life to the people and places in a reverential way. The text breathes life into stories of courage that need to be heard.A robust examination of South Africa's complex, storied history highlighting faces of radical justice. (glossary, bibliography, photo credits) (Graphic nonfiction. 14-adult)

Kirkus Reviews (Fri Oct 04 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

What does it look like when ordinary citizens resist government oppression?This graphic novel examines several decades of pre-apartheid resistance and rebellion in South Africa, beginning with early-20th–century discriminatory laws intended to restrict Asian immigration and ending with the miners' strike of 1946. With the exception of the final chapter, the work explores social change and resistance through legal cases, many of them forgotten in dusty files in the basement of the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein, in the process amplifying many voices that were largely unknown to history. Each chapter highlights a different act of resistance, telling hard stories honestly and without sensationalism. Zeroing in tightly on a 40-year span allows the book to examine complex historical nuances and feature the voices of ordinary, working-class people and long-standing communities like the Royal Bafokeng Nation who were activists for change. The source material dictated a different approach to the final chapter on the miners' strike, which is enhanced with striking photographs and features composite characters based on knowledge of life at the time. The illustrators' rich, evocative artwork in a variety of styles and color palettes adds layers of texture and context to the primary source documents, bringing life to the people and places in a reverential way. The text breathes life into stories of courage that need to be heard.A robust examination of South Africa's complex, storied history highlighting faces of radical justice. (glossary, bibliography, photo credits) (Graphic nonfiction. 14-adult)

Publishers Weekly

Told through the artwork of seven South African artists, including the Trantraal Brothers, Dada Khanyisa, and Mark Modimola, this comprehensive and diverse history collects stories of lesser-known rebels and their attempts to challenge their circumstances under the period of political upheaval that was “the Union years” (1910–1948), a time characterized, in part, by institutional hostility towards working people. Conyngham scoured archives and court records and from them pieced together portraits of everyday heroes who attempted to fight unjust treatment, such as African women in the Transvaal who contested a law that required them to carry a pass at night in white neighborhoods, or Asian immigrants who, after having built their entire lives in South Africa, fought to stay there after their resistance to the “Black Act”—a law stating that all Asian men over 16 carry a registration certificate with their name, age, caste, and fingerprints—resulted in deportation. The records are adapted into scripts but also are reproduced as visuals throughout. Each chapter’s artists take on different mediums, such as colored pencil or ink and watercolor, with some dramatic sequences, but there’s a tendency to overload with expository text. Still, this accessible work of essential history will be welcomed on the shelves of activists and students alike. (Apr).