Paperback ©2001 | -- |
Children's stories, South African (English).
Apartheid. Juvenile fiction.
Race relations. South Africa. Fiction.
Apartheid. Fiction.
South Africa. Fiction.
Spanning 52 years of South African unrest, Naidoo's (<EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Journey to Jo'burg; <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">The Other Side of Truth) insightful and suspenseful stories offer multiple perspectives of apartheid. Each of the seven young protagonists featured here come to understand the meaning of oppression as they witness or experience the effects of gross injustice. Veronica, a white girl, escapes punishment for stealing a neighbor's flower, then watches how a Native child is severely beaten for a similar crime, in the first story, set in 1948. In "The Noose," a 10-year-old boy in 1955 watches how segregation grips his family "fully by the throat" when his father, a man of mixed race, is mistakenly classified as "black," and the potential this has for impacting all areas of his life: his work, his neighborhood and the family. Although all selections focus on struggle, not all end in defeat. The winds of change become increasingly strong as the stories progress. One of the most poignant, uplifting moments comes in the final story (the titular tale, set in the year 2000) when, during the aftermath of a flood, two boys of different races risk crossing their social boundaries to aid a woman giving birth. In less than 200 pages, Naidoo manages to chronicle pivotal events in an ongoing battle for freedom in South Africa and to encapsulate the enduring hope and unfailing spirit of its people. Ages 10-up. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Jan.)
ALA BooklistEach of these short stories, set in a different decade in South Africa, from the 1950s onward, personalizes the political oppression and struggle from the viewpoint of a child. What was it like to be a Coloured (mixed-race) child under apartheid and be separated from your father when he was reclassified as black? To be a white boy shunned at school because your Commie parents have native friends? To hear your mother ordered around and called girl by her white employer? Or to be one of the first black students in an all-white school that doesn't want you? More docudrama than fiction, this book doesn't have the depth and complexity of Naidoo's The Other Side of Truth (2001), but Naidoo knows her country's history--the crude, ignorant racism, the suffering, the courage--and her diverse young viewpoints bring the politics of oppression and struggle into daily life. This will be an invaluable starting point for group discussion about contemporary South African history, especially when read with the introductory historical overview and the endnotes about each decade. Archbishop Tutu's moving foreword speaks of the incredible absence of revenge and retribution in the new South Africa, and many of these stories show that hope lies in personal connections.
Horn BookThis collection reminds us that, as Desmond Tutu writes in his foreward, "there is a beast in each of us, and none of us can ever say we would never be guilty of such evil." Naidoo's book reveals our humanity and inhumanity with starkness and precision. Each of the stories is set in a different decade--from the 1940s to 2000--to illustrate the changing political realities of South Africa. Naidoo honors her country with these brave tales.
Kirkus ReviewsSetting each of these seven stories in a different decade of the Apartheid or post-Apartheid eras, Naidoo ( The Other Side of Truth , 2001, etc.) offers glimpses of Apartheid's effects on body and spirit, as well as the underlying integrity—in both the oppressed majority and the oppressing minority—that has allowed South Africa to make its transition without the widely expected bloodbath. Her main characters are all children, white, Colored, Indian, or African. Between "The Dare: 1948," in which Veronica loses her respect, and therefore fear, of a brutish Boer neighbor when she sees him caning a child, and "Out of Bounds: 2000," about a refugee from floods in Mozambique and a white child from a walled community working on a task together, instances of subtle and overt racism test and change a cast constructed to represent South Africa's future—a bright future, in this passionate, perceptive author's view. (Short stories. 10-13)
School Library JournalGr 5-7-This powerful collection takes readers on a sometimes harrowing journey through the nightmare that was apartheid South Africa. The stories take place at various times between 1948, the year that marks the beginning of apartheid, through 2000. The main characters, who come from different ethnic and economic groups, are all children, and Naidoo's reliance on a child's perspective ensures that the material remains emotionally manageable. The author's touch is deft and sure, as she captures the ordinary details of life, along with the racism displayed in the speech and attitudes of white South Africans. In one of the most wrenching stories, "The Noose," a boy of mixed race relates how on his birthday his father was reclassified "African," thus imperiling not only his job, but even his ability to live with his family. Other stories tell of the white daughter of politically progressive parents who is trying to negotiate the racist world of her friend's parents, and a black African girl whose grandmother is drawn into helping her activist granddaughter during the Soweto uprising of 1976. The final story, about a middle-class boy of Indian descent who comes to feel a connection to a child living in a neighboring squatter settlement, leaves readers with the hope that human kindness will eventually triumph over the divisions among people. A time line of apartheid laws linked to the stories helps to establish the social and political context. As well as enriching any study of Southern Africa or human rights, Out of Bounds will be embraced by children seeking to expand their understanding of the world and other people.-Sue Giffard, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, New York City
Starred Review for Publishers Weekly
ALA Booklist
ALA/YALSA Best Book For Young Adults
Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
Horn Book
Kirkus Reviews
National Council For Social Studies Notable Children's Trade
School Library Journal
Voice of Youth Advocates
Wilson's Children's Catalog
Wilson's Junior High Catalog
Seven Stories of Conflict and Hope
Chapter One
The Dare
1948
Marika thrust the glass jar up to Veronica's face.
"See this one, Nicky!" she declared. "Caught it last week!" Veronica stared at the coiled brown shape slithering inside the greenish liquid. She felt sick.
"You should have seen how blinking quick I was, man! This sort are poisonous!"
Marika's eyes pinned her down, watching for a reaction. She didn't know which were worse, Marika's or those of the dead creature in the jar.
"Where did you find it?"
Her voice did not betray her, and Marika began her dramatic tale about tracking the snake in the bougainvillea next to the hen run.
It was a valuable addition to her collection. Rows of bottles, all with the same green liquid, lined the shelf above her bed. Spiders and insects of various shapes and sizes floated safely, serenely, inside. Marika carefully replaced the snake next to another prize item—a one-legged chameleon, its colors dulled and fixed. Veronica remembered it alive. It had been the farm children's pet briefly until they had tired of capturing flies for it. She had even helped one whole Saturday prowling around the cowshed, sneaking up and snapping the overfed blue buzzers in cigarette tins. The next morning Marika and her brothers had decided to let the creature go free and get its own dinner. But when they had come to release the catch of the splintering old wood-and-wire hutch, the chameleon lay stiff and still. The three boys had wanted, to make a special grave down in the donga—but in the end Marika had persuaded them to let her preserve it.
The farm, a small holding owned by Marika's parents, lay against a mountain in the middle of the Magaliesberg. As well as growing fruit and vegetables and keeping a few animals, the van Reenens rented out a small cottage on the farm, mostly to city visitors. It was near enough to Johannesburg for Mr. and Mrs. Martin with their only child, Veronica, to get away from the ever-increasing hustle for short breaks. They were regulars, coming two or three times a year. In fact, Mr. Martin had been visiting since he was a child, when Marika's mother herself had been a small girl on the same farm. Veronica's own memories of the place stretched back for as long as she could remember. For years she and Marika had played "house" in the donga behind the farmhouse. They had used larger stones for the walls, shifting around smaller stones as the furniture. In the past Veronica used to bring all her dolls, despite her mother's protests. Sensing Marika's envy, she had enjoyed saying which dolls could be played with. But since Marika's tenth birthday things were different.
Veronica had been taken by surprise. She had been sitting with the farm children on the wall of the stoep, dangling her legs and kicking the brickwork with her heels like the others. Marika had been telling her about her birthday treat when Veronica had suggested that they go to the donga.
"Hey, the girls are going to play dollies!" Marika's twin brother, Piet, had sneered. Slipping off the wall, six-year-old Dirk had rolled on the ground, kicking his legs in the air and cooing.
"Gaga gaga! Mommy! Mommy! Change my nappy!"
Veronica had glared at him, and he had pulled a face at her. She had fought to hold back her tears. Only Anton, the oldest, had not joined in but called the others to leave the girls alone to their sissy games. Marika had reacted furiously.
"I'm not a sissy!" she had screamed after them. Leaving Veronica alone on the stoep, she had gone inside the house, slamming the door behind her.
When Veronica returned to the farm a few months later, Marika had begun her bottle collection. Veronica had also left her dolls at home, except for the eyelid-clicking, brown-eyed Margaret. But this time the porcelain head with brown painted curls remained tucked under the bedclothes and was spoken to only at night. She became Veronica's personal counselor on the farm—a pale replica of Veronica's personal counselor in town.
Back home in Johannesburg it was Rebecca, their maid, to whom Veronica confided. She was a far better listener than Margaret because she made sympathetic noises. With Veronica's mother often helping out at her father's office, or busy with Mothers' Union meetings, they spent a lot of time together. Whether she was cooking, washing, ironing, or dusting, Rebecca was always prepared to chat. But she never came to the farm with them. Instead she went to visit her own children, living with their grandmother, a five-hour bus ride away.
Sharing secrets with Rebecca was fun, especially when Rebecca had let her visit her dim, tiny room in the servants' quarters at the top of their block of flats. It had started with her desperate desire to see the bedspread that Rebecca had been patiently embroidering for months on "baby-sitting" nights when Veronica's parents went out. Although Veronica didn't think she needed to be "baby-sat," she liked Rebecca's company. Together they would sit and talk at the table in the Martins's kitchen until it was her bedtime. She had watched the bedspread growing and, when it was finally completed, had begged and nagged to see how it looked on the bed. But before she could be taken, Rebecca had made her promise, "Remember, you are not to tell your ma or pa!"
Because it had been a secret, everything had stayed fixed in her mind like a picture. The splendid bedcover draped over an old iron bed raised up high on bricks. A curtain across one corner of the room, Rebecca's cupboard. An orange-crate table next to the bed, on which stood a photo . . .
Out of BoundsSeven Stories of Conflict and Hope. Copyright © by Beverley Naidoo. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
Excerpted from Out of Bounds: Seven Stories of Conflict and Hope by Beverley Naidoo
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We are the young people, We will not be broken!
For almost fifty years, apartheid forced the young people of South Africa to live apart as Blacks, Whites, Indians, and "Coloreds." This unique and dramatic collection of stories—by native South African and Carnegie Medalist Beverley Naidoo—is about young people's choices in a beautiful country made ugly by injustice. Each story is set in a different decade during the turbulent years from 1948 to 2000, and portrays powerful fictional characters who are caught up in very real and often disturbing events.
The noose, 1955
One day, Lily, one day, 1960
The typewriter, 1976
The gun, 1985
The playground, 1995
Out of bounds, 2000.