Afrika

Starred review from July 1, 2008
Gr 6-8-Growing up in Canada with her white South African mother, Kim van der Merwe does not know who her father is. Now, at 13, she goes to Cape Town for the first time, shortly after independence in the mid-1990s, because her mother, a journalist, is going to report on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Visiting and meeting her family for the first time, she decides that her mission will be to discover her father's identity. When Kim becomes involved in a friendship with the family who works for the van der Merwes', especially Themba, whose father was murdered by the police during apartheid, her life becomes more closely entwined with South Africa's political and social realities. As she gets closer to the answer she seeks, her mother becomes more and more unhinged by the horrors she hears about in her work. The climax packs a powerful emotional punch as the author dovetails Kim's personal odyssey with the pain, contradictions, and hopes of the country as it carries its devastating history into the future. The realities of the society are carefully and skillfully portrayed, so that Kim's story is truly the emotional heart of the book, and not a vehicle for ideas. Kim herself is a believable and likable character, and her relationship with Themba is tender and realistic. The author does not sugarcoat the realities of South Africa, or the details of torture that are revealed at the Truth Commission. Not just another multicultural title, by any means, this novel will really grab readers who appreciate realistic fiction about young people searching for their place in the world."Sue Giffard, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, New York City"

Copyright 2008 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from June 1, 2008
The riveting revelations of South Africas Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)are at the heart of this powerful novel, in which, like Carolyn Comans award-winning Many Stones (2000), political history is fused with one girls discovery of family secrets. Growing up in Canada, Kim, 13, has never known her father. Her mom, journalist Riana van der Merwe, refuses to talk about him or about her South African home. But when Kim goes with Riana to cover the TRC hearings for three months, she learns about her Afrikaner family roots in the heart of the rural Karroo. Then tension quietly builds, until she finally meets herfather and discovers why Riana, pregnant with Kim, ran away and never returned. There is some plot contrivance, and Kims black friend and mentor, Themba, son of a family servant in the backyard shack, is much toowise and understanding. But the author, wholived in South Africa in the 1980s (before the TRC hearings), gets the way things were for ordinary people, especially in the farm areas, exactly right. The teen outsiders viewpoint reveals the shocking apartheid cruelty, which includes what happened to Thembas father. Readers will be stirred by the connections with other history they know (I was only carrying out orders) and by the ultimate message about forgiveness.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)