Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Review by M

Here's the fuzzy lead up to why I read Half of a Yellow Sun in the first place, and my mixed but hopeful expectations for it:

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Purple Hibiscus is one of those books that has a special place on my shelves. I read it during a period when I was reading little fiction and not making note of my thoughts about that which I did read (other than the piles of non-fiction, of course!). Consequently, I remember little of what Purple Hibiscus is about other than that my enduring response to it is similar to the one I hold for Tsisti Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions (both are about teenage girls in African countries). In short, Ngozi Adichie had earned a place in my reading heart. But then I tried reading Americanah, her most recent novel and the main character's internal whining jarred too much with me, and I left it unfinished and disappointed. But then someone from Booktrust told me how much they'd loved Half of a Yellow Sun, so I kept a wary eye out for it, curious as to whether it would be another Purple Hibiscus, an Americanah, or something else for me.

It was definitely more Purple Hibiscus, so I'm very happy and would recommend this novel to a variety of people.

Three things stood out most for me in Half of a Yellow Sun. - I learned something, I enjoyed the storytelling/plot over character (I know!), and yes, there is something about the writing (or structure) that jars with me a little.

The story is set in 1960s Nigeria, just before and during the civil war and the establishment of Biafra. Yes, I'd forgotten about Biafra (and Ngozi Adichie raises an eyebrow or smiles wryly inwardly), so I learned quite a bit from the plot, which often pleases me. For example, the title of the book is taken from a symbol on the Biafran flag. I'm sure I never knew that.

The plot became the page turner for me, and I read this novel for long uninterrupted periods over a few days - which is the first novel of the five I've read this year that has had that effect on me. Either I've reached a turning point or that's saying something about Half of a Yellow Sun. At least, it's saying that the novel tells a good story: that of love and human relationships within an extended family/household, and civil war.

Characterwise, the narrator and the novel moves back and forth among its main characters: Ugwu (the houseboy), Olanna (the long suffering beauty), Kainene (the ugly twin), Odenigbo (Master and revolutionary lover), and Richard (white man writer in Africa). Ugwu, for me, is by far the most charming of the characters. Olanna is a character who doesn't feel 'right' to me and I'm starting to think that Ngozi Adichie's main female characters are always going to have this effect on me. But, that thought doesn't sit true with Purple Hibiscus, whose main character is female. Interestingly, too, Ugwu and Kambili (Purple Hibiscus) are both teenagers. Perhaps then, I like Ngozi Adichie's characterisation of teenagers but not female adults. I'd have to reread Purple Hibiscus to get to the bottom of that one.

Structurally, I wasn't overly keen. The novel moves back and forth between the early and the late 1960s. The middle of these periods turns on two points: Biafra and war, and personal relationship troubles. Often I feel that this is done for no other reason than to introduce suspense. The novel does this but annoyingly it also 'spoils' some of the plot by telling me what happens before the story has reached it natural course (yep, for once, I'm plumping for a more linear tale!). There's also a strange device that occasionally tags the draft of a novel onto the end of chapters. The strange thing about this is it's written by the narrator and not the 'author'. For me, it obstructs the flow. I understand that Ngozi Adichie is making a political point about who should tell which stories but the whole of Half of a Yellow Sun does this anyway.

A last and, for me, interesting observation: sexual references are littered throughout the novel. Far more than I remember reading in other novels for a long time. This, perhaps, says more about the other novels that I've been reading rather than the amount of sex in Half of a Yellow Sun.

Most of this review sounds quite critical, more so than some of my other reviews. Maybe it just had more personal bite for me, and maybe I like that because it's the novel I've enjoyed reading most so far this year.


Publication details:
This copy: My own; Fourth estate, 2014

Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Reviewed by M

I first read Things Fall Apart at university for African Literature. It was possibly the first novel I’d read that was written by a black African author. The novel recently reappeared on my bookshelves after bringing it back from my attic bookhaul earlier this year (some of you might recall this event!). What prompted me to read it now, however, was We Need New Names, a new and wonderful novel by NoViolet Bulawayo.

 

We Need New Names referred frequently to ‘things fall apart’and I was sure this was more than coincidence. Having read Things Fall Apart, I should have known....but I didn’t. So I reread it. Yes, it is more than coincidence.....

 

Things Fall Apart is a tragedy: a tragedy about an individual, a tragedy about a village and perhaps a tragedy about colonialism. Set in pre-colonial Nigeria, it tells the story of Okonkwo, a proud and successful member of his tribe. The novel describes the tribe’s way of life, their (almost) unflinching adherence to their religion and patriarchal values. However, the novel also introduces questions that cut right into how we perceive our own and other cultures. At the forefront of this are differences about individual will versus the will of the gods as well as group will, justice, and sorrow. What comes out most strongly in Things Fall Apart is the suggestion that without missionaries and further colonisation, the tribes, as any other group of people, would have developed in their own time and ways – who knows what our histories would look like if that had happened? Achebe makes it clear that individuals in Okonkwo’s village were starting to mumble about the ways some things were done: for example, killing people simply because the gods said so or abandoning twins. The novel makes an effort to point out that cultural interpretations vary even within countries and that what is an atrocity ‘here’ might not be considered an atrocity ‘there’.

 

It is a highly enjoyable and gently compelling re-read and I think I got much more out of it this time. The writing style is quiet and quite different to many contemporary novels and especially 'western' novels. Some people criticised Achebe for writing in English but I'm in the camp that thinks this was a far-reaching move and achievement for both literature and cultural thinking.

 

Comparatively then, how did I view Things Fall Apart and We Need New Names?

 

Things Fall Apart was first published in 1958 and is set in Nigeria just before colonial times (probably late nineteenth century), around the time that the first European missionaries moved in. We Need New Names was published in 2013 and is set in Zimbabwe and the USA post-2005. Both novels are written in English and their authors are both African by birth.

About halfway through Things Fall Apart, Ekwefi (one of Okonkwo’s wives) tells a story about a tortoise and the birds who have a feast in the sky. I think that NoViolet Bulawayo has borrowed from this little story and weaved it into We Need New Names. There are other scenes, images and thoughts in Things Fall Apart that make the two novels interesting for parallel reading most notably in how different groups of people (towns, tribes, nations, religions, races) respond to other cultures and about tolerating (or not!) their vastly different ways of life.

What both novels do well is to lay out the beautiful and the ugly nitty gritties that underpin the rules and regulations and daily functioning of specific communities and cultures. In Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo is not the most sympathetic character and there are many views and actions that may grate on your personal worldview. And that’s the point. Covering a century of time, reading these two novels together is a wonderful experience. In some ways, it's a tragedy that  hundreds of years later, there are still so many overlaps.

A little heads up especially for younger readers: Susan Cooper’s Ghost Hawk is set in the USA and has many parallels with Things Fall Apart too. Adults who have an inclination towards comparative reading and discussion might want to check that out too.

 

Classics Club verdict

 

Things Fall Apart is also on our Classics Club challenge list. Little M and I have been drawing our own conclusions about what we think a 'literary' classic is. Of course, Things Fall Apart has its feet firmly planted in the African canon and has made tracks in European and American canons too. Our own 'canon' is more about whether we enjoyed some aspect of it enough to recommend it to readers from another generation. Things Fall Apart ticks the box for me.

 

My copy’s publication details: 1987, Heinemann African Writers Series, London, paperback

We Need New Names - M's review

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo

Adult fiction review by M

 

This novel slipped its hands around my throat and the bruises won’t fade to pale that quickly.  I suspect it will never fully let go.

We Need New Names tackles the displacement that has become part of our contemporary global landscape.  Set just a few years back in post-2005 Zimbabwe, it is narrated by Darling, a 10 year old girl who lives in a Paradise shantytown shack and dreams of escaping to an American paradise.  The novel follows Darling and her friends until she is about fourteen (or fifteen) although there is a section that suggests it follows her for many years after that as the latter chapters follow a distinctly non-linear chronology. It seems appropriate to post this review during Refugee Week.

Wonderfully, this is a novel whipped with the complexities of African identities in a post-colonial and globalised world and its most compelling theme is that of contemporary displacement, a theme that will resonate with many readers. The formation of the informal settlements is the first displacement that takes place – in Darling’s life – and a few more follow. At some point the novel asks what is home and reminds us that when someone is talking about home we need to listen very carefully to hear which paradise they are actually talking about.  We Need New Names is not only about physical displacements of home, it is about lives, countries, systems falling apart until we don’t know which part of the broken Coca-Cola glass bottle we are. Where some books get under your skin, We Need New Names snakes right in and tugs at every essence.

Aside from displacement, We Need New Names will appeal to anyone interested in Zimbabwe. The novel deals with power and corrupt leadership, religious beliefs and customs, cultural mores, childhood values, land ownership, AIDS, race, language and the pains of self-imposed exile. It is a painful read with many disturbing scenes. Darling’s voice is occasionally reminiscent of Harrison in Stephen Kelman’s Pigeon English.

While this is up there with some of my favourite post-colonial African writing like The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (Ayi Kwei Armah) and Nervous Conditions (Tsitsi Dangarembga), intriguingly We Need New Names also reminded me of The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas (especially one chapter). Because the clause "things fall apart" repeatedly crops up in We Need New Names, I have also been prompted to start a re-read of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (since writing this review but prior to its posting, I have finished the Achebe and highly recommend reading these two novels together. A parallel review of Things Fall Apart is coming up...).  Younger teen readers may like to read Now is the Time for Running (Michael Williams) which is a novel about similar issues around Zimbabwe and exile.

I’m very keen to see what NoViolet Bulawayo does next.

NoViolet Bulawayo left Zimbabwe when she was eighteen and now lives in the USA.

 

Some asides (may be a bit SPOILERY – but only a teeny bit):

• I don’t think Zimbabwe is ever named in the novel, nor is its political leader.
• Once again, dogs get a raw deal in this novel: ouch.
• Although quickly replaced, Darling is also permanently remembered: another ouch.
• Remember: oranges are definitely not the only fruit – there are guavas too.

 

Publication details: Chatto & Windus, June 2013, hardback

This copy: digital copy received for review from the publisher

 

 

 

 

 

The Child's Elephant - Little M's review

The Child’s Elephant by Rachel Campbell-Johnston

 

Reviewed by Little M

 

When Bat, a young African boy finds a dying baby elephant on the savannah, he and his best friend Muka set their hearts to save her. As Meya, the elephant, grows up Bat learns to let go of her and to let her into the wild.

After a few years without the elephant, Bat and Muka are taken captive by the soldier children. They are forced into the rebel army and must face whatever the army throws at them. This includes asking them to kill Meya!

This is an amazing story of a boy, an elephant and a rebel army, which forces children to join. This novel made me cry and laugh but never made me too sad. It makes me think about animal poaching and betrayal.

Definitely for Michael Morpurgo fans and also Gill Lewis and Lauren St John fans. I think almost anyone should read it but I would recommend it to late primary school and early secondary school. This is down to the main characters’ ages and the style of writing which best suits this age.

The cover for this novel is amazing. It captures the essence of the story. I think it will make people pick it up!

This is a novel that will stay with me forever. I  recommend The Child’s Elephant 100%!

 

Amazing full cover for The Child's Elephant by Rachel Campbell-Johnston. Artwork by David Dean.

 

 

Publication details: David Fickling Books, May 2013, Oxford, hardback

This copy: received for review from the publisher

 

 

 

We sat down for a chat.....with Edyth Bulbring

Edyth Bulbring is a South African author who wrote the funny A Month With April-May (published in South Africa as Melly, Mrs Ho and Me). One of the things I loved in that novel was April-May's Cold Facts that ended each chapter. In true Cold Fact style, here's Edyth....

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Seven Cold Facts About Me That Only My Best Friends Know

 

1. IF MY HOUSE WAS BURNING DOWN I WOULD SAVE...

My dog Zwiggy. She’s actually not my dog; she belongs to my daughter Sophie. We got her from an animal shelter the day before the opening of the 2010 Soccer World Cup. I fell in love with her even though she has chewed her way through my leather chairs, my books, my garden, the seatbelts in my car and my twenty year old Doc Martens. (And that was just breakfast). We love Zwiggy so much that we take her on holiday with us. We can’t bear to leave her behind. On one occasion, flying from Cape Town to Johannesburg, she got free from the hold, leapt from the plane and was chased down the runway by a fire engine. She was found in the airport parking lot ten hours later.

Parts of Zwiggy and her friend, the dog who used to live next door (Alistair) appear in 100 Days of April-May, the sequel to A Month with April-May. In fact, this book is dedicated to Alistair, who was as awesome as Zwiggy.

Zwiggy, Edyth Bulbring's dog

 

2. I NEVER USE AN...

Umbrella. Not ever. I like the rain. I like getting wet. I live in a house on a hill in Johannesburg and during the summer months we get the most fantastic thunderstorms. They are so fierce they crack the sky in half and make your heart stop beating. When it rains, I like to go outside and walk around in my gumboots. But use an umbrella?  Never.


Edyth Bulbring's gumboots (pretty wellies!)
 

3. I COLLECT...

Names. Some people collect books, others hoard rude teacher notes and lunch box lids. I love names.  I suppose it’s because I have a weird one myself. When I was young I was called Weedy Eedy (in my skinny years) and Greedy Eedy (in my fat ones). And then there was Needy Eedy during those grim days when I ate school lunch in the cloakroom in case no one wanted to sit with me. And having a surname like Bulbring, has also lent itself to some creative abuse over the years. My name has given me a taste for names. I collect them and use them in my books. In A Month with April-May I chose April-May February’s name to illustrate how much at odds her parents were from the day she was born. They wanted to call her by their favourite month of the year – but couldn’t agree on what it was. In the sequel to this book, I call the large boy Fatty on the advice of a group of teenagers that Fatty was the cruellest of all names to call a fat person.  There is hardly a name in any one of my books that does not have a hidden meaning or a personal association for me.

4. I AM ALLERGIC TO...

Shopping Malls. I hate shopping malls as much as I hate standing in queues, filling in forms and cooking. Malls are big in South Africa. And because Johannesburg is the biggest city, we go even bigger on malls. When I go into a mall I start sweating and my chest closes up. So I buy most of my stuff from the Hospice Shop down the road, auctions and second hand shops. I buy clothes, furniture, books and crockery at these shops.  I have even bought a church pulpit.  It lives in my study and keeps my newspapers. Give me a second hand shop any day. I can’t bear new stuff that lives in malls.


The pulpit!
 

5. THE ONE THING I FAIL AT EVERY TIME I TRY IS...

Parallel parking. I just can’t do it. I would rather walk a mile than parallel park. I am also a very nervous passenger.  I have to sit in the back of the car when I am taking a lift because I get so agitated and irritate the diver so much. I think it’s because I know so many people who have been involved in car accidents. Killing off people on the roads is a South African sport.  We drink and drive too fast and cause accidents. When I was writing A Month with April-May, I had to give April-May’s father a job. And because he is such a lovely man, I decided to give him the job that is one of the most despised in this country -  the tow-truck driver - the vulture who is always at the scene of the accident to make a killing off someone else’s misery.

6. THE BOOKS I WRITE ARE ALL FICTION...

Well yes and no. Most of what I write about is based on things that I have experienced with my three children. I got the idea of A Month with April-May from my daughter, Sophie who was having a bad time with one of her teachers. And knowing my daughter, the teacher was probably having a rotten time of it too. It got me thinking about the effect that one teacher can have on the life of a child. And how teachers have the ability to make or break pupils – and vice versa. It also got me wondering about the miscommunication that happens between people and how sometimes it sets us off on a course of action we can’t stop, even when things are heading for a train smash. So I decided to write about a teacher and a student who butted heads and things got out of hand. In my daughter’s case, things didn’t end happily. Writing this book was a way of turning things around and giving the story a different ending.

7. THE BEST THING ABOUT GOING TO SCHOOL WAS...

Nothing. I lived across the road from school and after signing the register I used to walk home and spend the day reading. My mother didn’t seem to mind. But there was one teacher who made school bearable for me. Her name was Dr Ida Bell and she was my English Literature teacher. The thing I liked about her was that she didn’t sweat the small stuff. She didn’t care if we wore the regulation underwear or ate in class or chewed gum. She just wanted us to read and talk about books. Years after I left school I used to visit her and we would drink whiskey together and cry about the romantic poets. I dedicated A Month with April-May to her, and teachers like her.



The people behind Edyth's stories: Jack, Sophie and Emily


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Thank you, Edyth, for sharing these cold facts with us! Love Zwiggy and those pretty wellies. And what a gorgeous photo of Jack, Sophie and Emily.

You can read our reviews of A Month with April May here.

PS. We're quoted in it (not the story, the pages that are before it)!




 

 

 

A Month With April-May - joint review

A Month with April May by Edyth Bulbring

This is a joint review with separate thoughts from M and Little M.

M’s thoughts

April-May February is a Twilight addict and fancies herself as Bella – even though her skin will always be a couple of shades darker. Her parents have split up and she’s living with her dad who, in the current economic climate, works as a tow-away driver. She’s won a bursary and has just started at a posh new high school in Johannesburg. However....she just doesn’t connect with her new teacher, Mrs Ho. Of course, April-May is also a rebel and gets up to all sorts of ‘scrapes’ which she has designed - but she’d say this was due to “circumstances”. She’s the very clever practical joker, only she’s not joking.  A Month With April-May is about April-May desperately trying to get her life back into the order that she wants.

The novel starts off really well – and is quite addictive. Although it keeps up the pace (with April-May’s witty wisecracks, how could it not?) it quickly becomes a situation comedy. One that many young teen readers will probably find very funny.

A Month With April-May is written for young teens but I really wanted to read it because I enjoy a lot of South African adult fiction that has children or teens as its main characters. I’m thinking of adult novels like Barbara Trapido's Frankie & Stankie, Lauren Liebenberg's The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam, and Rachel Zadok's Gem Squash Tokoloshe. These are the books that sprang to mind when the publishers said that April-May had a “special charm”.

Yes, the character April-May February has a special charm as does the novel. The first chapter or so (for some reason) is reminiscent of recent Barbara Trapido. But, unlike the aforementioned adult novels which are retrospective stories, April-May takes a post-apartheid contemporary view of life in Gauteng's eastern suburbs from a mixed-race teen's perspective (with a dash of authorial presence sniping at current socio-economics and the high traffic incident casualties). I think it does it well. What is refreshing, is that race wasn't obviously relevant to this story and only casually pops up when that all-important activity of Johannesburg poolside tanning takes place.

A Month With April-May made me smile and I loved April-May's cold facts which she includes at the end of each chapter. The novels themes include typical school based ones as well as the changing structures of contemporary family units. I thought the last line of the novel was very meaningful and pulled the novel together well. Also, April-May should be applauded for reminding people that it does rain in Cape Town in winter.

This is a quick and light read with a very distinct South African flavour. There’s a glossary at the back – which might be useful for some readers in explaining some of the South African slang used in the novel.  Probably best suited to readers 11+ (plus older South Africans living abroad).

Little M’s thoughts

A Month With April-May didn’t really hook me. I am probably not used to how it’s written. I  got a bit confused and sometimes I didn't understand what April-May was talking about. It also jumped around a bit. I’m not used to books where it’s just about a person rather than an adventure. I haven’t  read any Louise Rennison books (the publishers compare April-May to books in Rennison’s style) but I like books by Judy Blume.

 

Publication details: Hot Key Books, February 2013, London, paperback

This copy: uncorrected proof received for review from the publisher

A Month With April May was originally published by Penguin South Africa under the title Melly, Mrs Ho and Me. Melly and Mrs Ho are key characters in the novel.

The Beadle - M's review

The Beadle by Pauline Smith

When Little M and I first started blogging about books, I found that all my recommendations were from my own childhood, teenagehood and even early university years. I also kept referring to some of these books as must-reads and using them as benchmarks. But, it’s been years since I’d read them and I really didn’t have any idea of whether or not they would still stack up.

Since reviewing, I started noticing things about my own reading habits, and the sorts of themes or aspects of a novel that I would pick out in comparison to Little M and other book bloggers. It really hit home that context and life-stage affect my reading experience (not much a revelation in theory but it is in practice).

Then I came across the Classics Club where you have to read at least fifty classics in five years (the definition of classics is left up to each individual reader). That’s what gave me the final push to rereading. My first re-read and my first read for the Classics Club is The Beadle by Pauline Smith.

But my review of it has a long, contextual story.

The Beadle by Pauline Smith

I first read The Beadle at high school and my comment was that it was okay. But The Beadle is one of the few school texts that left a positive imprint in my mind. I was intrigued by why my memory of it and my comment at the time of reading should differ so much.

 

However, The Beadle is out of print and buying a secondhand copy of it in the UK was rather too pricey. Lo and behold, what do I find on holiday in the middle of South Africa’s Klein Karoo (Little Karoo)? Dustcovers, a secondhand, collectibles and antique bookshop in the middle of the now trendy but still rural karoo town of Nieu Bethesda. Yes, there it was. A copy of The Beadle.

So the scene for my re-read has been perfectly set. I’ve just stayed in the middle of the karoo on a farm. I’ve bought the book in the karoo too. And of course, The Beadle is set in a little karoo valley.

Review

The Beadle is set in the very rural karoo when carts were still the main means of travel and when the role and standing of the church was paramount. It is a poignant and softly biting portrayal of coming-of-age in rural South Africa The story is about Andrina who lives with her aunts and the surly old beadle, Aalst Vlokman, on the Harmonie farmland. Her mother, Klaartje, ran away for home and died in childbirth, and there are all sorts of family secrets lurking in the background. Andrina is sweet and seventeen and she’s just about to join the church. And then an Englishman arrives at the farm.

Published in 1926, the language as well as the story are almost of a completely bygone time but it is still an easy but evocative read. Having read a little of Olive Schreiner’s The Story of An African Farm, the vocabulary and language use is similar.

The Beadle's story, on one level, is a very simple one about sin, moralities, taboos, betrayals, love and religion.

I remember feeling terribly sorry for some of the characters when I first read this book. The kind of feeling that must be empathy because how they must have felt gets right into the pit of your stomach and refuses to leave you. The effect of the story this time around wasn’t as intense – I’m older and wiser and the story is nothing new. Not like it would have been when I was a teenager.

Second time around, yes, I enjoyed The Beadle. For anyone interested in South African literature (or young adult literature from another time and place), I’d definitely recommend this. As a novel, it has been heavily negatively criticised since the 1970s by the likes of Nadine Gordimer and JM Coetzee for its portrayal of the rural Afrikaner and promoting the need for nationalist ideology in South Africa (and this critique may have been vital at that time in Sputh Africa's history). Pauline Smith may well do that, and if you’re looking for this, you’ll find it – the Englishman certainly doesn’t come off well. However, that’s not how I saw The Beadle at all (but I wasn’t especially looking for it).

 

For me, The Beadle, as it was on my first reading, is Andrina and Klaartje’s story. And theirs is a story that we still find today in all sorts of settings.

 

Publication details:First published 1926.

This edition: 1990, David Philip, Cape Town, paperback, my own

 

A dusty blast from the past

Last summer, we spent weeks travelling and reading children's classics with our family. This December, we chose to leave winter behind and went south (a bit like a pilgrimage) and became ensconced in some very old, boiling hot, and sometimes dusty reads.

First stop was a farm in Nieu Bethesda which is a little dorpie (village) in the South African Klein Karoo (the Little Karoo). It's surprising how booky this stop turned out to be.

Historically, the Afrikaner vootrekkers moved north from the Cape using ox-wagons. Lots of the furniture and obejcts in the farmhouse dated back many years. We found this in the dining room. I'm punning now, but if you take a look at this bible, you might not be blamed for saying that their religion sometimes weighed heavily upon life in the Karoo!

After a visit to Helen Martin's Owl House, we found Dustcovers, a little secondhand and antiquarian bookshop.

I knew exactly what I was looking for: The Beadle by Pauline Smith. The story is set in the Little Karoo and I'd read it as a setwork at high school. What better time and place to buy and re-read it than in the story's original setting!  And I was also given a copy of Athol Fugard's play, The Road To Mecca, as a gift from my parents. The thing about this play, is that it is inspired by Helen Martin and her Owl House. You can see a picture of the sculputures that adorn her garden on the front cover.

Little M also picked up some old books in Dustcovers: The Red Pony by John Steinbeck, The Green Grass of Wyoming by Mary O'Hara (the third in the Flicka trilogy), Stormy: Misty's Foal (the Stormy Breyer model has passed down a couple of generations in our family) and The Secret of Shadow Ranch which is the first Nancy Drew title by Carolyn Keene.

Next stop, was the attic housing boxes of books from my childhood. Boy was it hot up there. The kind of heat where you can hardly breathe and just being there brings on a drenching sweat. But it was worth it. Here's a small selection of what I found:

 

The Clue of the Broken Locket by Carolyn Keene (Nancy Drew). I'm not that old; this book was secondhand before I got it! What's interesting about it is I also had a paperback version of it. However, the two stories were completey different. What a mystery that was to me when I was younger. I loved that!

 

 

A selection of Lorna Hill's Sadlers Wells ballet stories. Again, all secondhand before they came to me. This copy of A Dream of Sadlers Wells was Nanny Bee's and she's still very proud of the school book prize plate that's stuck in it. This one came over in my hand luggage. Also, note our method of cooling down in the background!

 

 

I knew I had them still. The Chocolate War and After the First Death. Two of Robert Cormier's classic Young Adult/teen titles. Definitely worth a re-read. And I've always been fascinated by those cover illustrations.

 

Before we went on this trip, I jokingly said to someone that we'd do a wild booky post but that hopefully it wouldn't be deadly. Um, well....it wasn't quite deadly, but jeez Louise! We'll leave the rest of that story for a later time!

M's Review - Now Is the Time For Running

Now Is the Time For Running by Michael Williams

Now Is the Time For Running

First published in South Africa as The Billion Dollar Soccer Ball, Now Is the Time For Running is a novel about the courage, bravery, despair and hope that are required by ordinary, everyday adults and children in the face of xenophobia (the fear of people from another country).

This is a compelling story about two brothers, Deo and Innocent. It starts with a dusty game of football being played in a Zimbabwean village using an improvised soccer ball (a football). It’s around 2007 and the arrival of soldiers at the soccer game sets the novel on a dramatic and heartwrenching path.

Deo is fourteen and finds himself faced with a smattering of the biggest and scariest decisions of his life. They’re made even tougher because he shoulders responsibility for Innocent, his twenty-four year old brother who suffered brain trauma at birth.  Armed with only a broken soccer ball and a cereal box, Deo and Innocent set off on a journey. They know their lives are in danger and they need to seek refuge. But they don’t know where they’re going or how they’re going to get there.

Now Is the Time For Running is a hopeful story but it is also a deeply sad and horrifying story. There all sorts of wild and often horrible obstacles encountered by the characters in this story. But there is also a lot of goodness where you’d least expect to find it. Apart from telling a good story, this is one of those novels that might prompt some readers to go and find out more about refugees or even get involved in existing social projects. Or maybe start a new one.  Or just have a little think.

This is a book that could hook readers of soccer fiction. Soccer is a central theme and it provides key turning points in the story. It is also a much loved game in southern Africa. But for those who aren’t football fans, fear not. The story is really about Deo and Innocent’s journey for refuge. And it’s a real pageturner. The last section of the book was my least favourite but it signposted me to a couple of important things I didn’t know about so I am very pleased I read them (I’m not saying what they were because that would be a plot spoiler!). 

I think this fictional story (based on interviews with African refugees) will tug at the hearts and minds of most teenagers, youth workers and many other adults.  I think I should start a new tag for the blog: books that made me cry when I wrote the review.

The book cover warns that it is not suitable for younger readers. There is horrific violence and abuse but it is not graphic and sometimes it is simply inferred.

Publication details:

Tamarind, 2012, London, paperback

This copy: received for review from the publishers

Other reading suggestions:

For younger readers wishing to read fiction that explores issues with similar themes about democracy and refugees, I would point them towards The Other Side of Truth by Beverley Naidoo.

For older readers who are interested in genocide, refugees and human rights, Never Fall Down is the story of a teenage boy living through the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge killings in Cambodia. Never Fall Down is a much starker read than Now Is the Time For Running.

Another teen novel about contemporary Zimbabwe is Jason Wallace’s Out of Shadows. We haven’t read this but it did win the Costa in 2010.

The younger brother caring for an older brother theme also runs through My Brother Simple by Marie Aude-Murail. But that is a very different book.