Another book that I missed in 2017. Thank goodness for book reviews, friends, Librarything, Goodreads, etc that keep my reading lists long and my TBR piles teetering! I'm certainly old enough to know some things about apartheid in South Africa, but I knew nothing about the Soweto Uprising in 1970s Johannesburg. Robin is a nine year old white girl whose parents are murdered, leaving her to live with her aunt who loves her but doesn't want to be tied down. Beauty Mbali, a Xhosa woman living in a rural village raising her children after the death of her husband gets a letter saying that her daughter is in danger. Beauty needs to stay in Johannesburg to continue searching for her daughter who is now missing. Robin needs a caregiver when her aunt is traveling, which is how Robin and Beauty start forming a deep bond through both their personal losses. ( )

I see why others might like this book, but it definitely wasn't for me.

First of all, I just don't like stories told from the perspective of a 9 year old (Robin), and half this book is from that point of view. Honestly, it felt like a young adult novel throughout to me, rife with simplistic statements about race and grief. Robin's chapters were just flat out boring to me. I think Robin's voice was written with wit, but that's not enough to overcome the fact that a 9 year old's perspective just isn't very scintillating.

The other issue I had with the book is that there are a lot of unlikely occurrences that drive the ending. It goes from this quiet story about Robin and her black caretaker, Beauty, and their shared losses and their bonding to an action-adventure type caper with bad guys, guns, and a car chase. All tied up neatly with a bow.

This type of writing just leaves me cold. There's nothing that the reader brings to the table. The writer indicates every thought and feeling and in the case of this book, points out all the prejudices and racism and biases very explicitly. It uses the characters voices to tell the reader everything. Nothing is inferred. Nothing is subtle.

It's easy reading with a straightforward plot, and the characters are likeable. It would have been 1 star if I was rating solely on the degree to which I enjoyed reading it, but I did think the character of Beauty was well done and not stereotypical, and the fact that I wanted things to turn out well for her was the only reason I was able to get through this one at all. ( )

Beautifully written story set in S. Africa during apartheid. Beauty is a black woman searching for her daughter who has gone missing. Robin is a 10-year old white girl who is now living with her aunt after the death of her parents. Her irresponsible and usually drunk aunt leaves Robin for weeks at a time, and hires Beauty to care for her.
Robin initially looks down on Beauty, as this is how she has been taught. But, through the caring of others, and how they treat Beauty, as well as the love and care Beauty shows to Robin changes their lives, and brings out the true meaning of family. Lyrical and touching. ( )

didn't like the writing, but kept my interest
1975--80, apartheid and uprising in Soweto South Africa. Two people whose lives are very different. A white, 10 yr old girl whose parents are killed by blacks at the beginning of the uprising goes to live with her aunt. jA black, educated woman from a small village has to raise her children alone after her husband dies in the mines. her daughter is in school in Soweto and gets very involved in the uprising. The black mother goes to look for her daughter. meanwhile, She becomes a "nanny" to the 10year old girl. their lives are compared and their relationship evolves--blacks & whites can learn to live together. ( )

Apartheid. It's a word we here in the US have heard (if we're old enough or perhaps through history in school) but we don't actually know much about the reality of it. We know that it means systemic racism, segregation, inequality, and racial violence. It means white-minority rule enforced by brutality and limited suffrage. It means the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela. It means the murder of Stephen Biko. But of the major and minor clashes and the fight for equality and representation over the almost 50 years that it was enshrined in South African politics and law, most of us know very little. Until I read Bianca Marais' Hum If You Don't Know the Words, I didn't remember anything about the 1976 Soweto Uprising, a peaceful, 20,000 strong student-led demonstration that the government suppressed by firing on school children, killing and injuring many (official accounts and the presumed actual count vary wildly). This important and horrific event forms the backbone of Marais' well written debut novel.

Nine, almost ten, year old Robin lives with her parents in a mining town outside of Johannesburg. Her life is one of privilege and whiteness and the biggest divide in her world is that between the Dutch Afrikaner children and herself. She rides her bike, schemes about how she can join the boys-only gang in the neighborhood, and plays hopscotch. In short, she's living a normal, untroubled childhood. Until the night that her parents go to an event and don't come home, leaving Robin an orphan in the care of her glamorous, single, flight attendant Aunt Edith.

Beauty Mbali is a single mother who has struggled to raise her children after her husband's death. She is a teacher in the Transkei, where she grew up a member of the Xhosa people. Beauty is strong and smart but she is not spared from the unrest of the nation even in her rural home. She receives a letter from her brother, who has taken in Beauty's 17 year old daughter Nomsa so that she can get a better education than is offered her in the rural Transkei. The letter alarms Beauty, who leaves her sons behind and illegally undertakes the arduous journey to Johannesburg to save her daughter, only to arrive in the middle of the Soweto Uprising. In the aftermath of the uprising, Nomsa, who was one of the student leaders and organizers, is missing and Beauty will do anything to find her. This is how she comes to be Robin's caretaker whenever Aunt Edith is flying elsewhere in the world. Caring for Robin gives her the papers to stay in the city and search for her daughter.

The novel alternates between Robin and Beauty narrating their own chapters. With the first person narration, the reader can see and understand the deep sorrow and fear that both Robin and Beauty feel for their respective situations. Robin's narration is often immature, just as she herself is but it also shows how she is developing opinions and beliefs, ones that are formed by the love and care of the people who surround her, all of whom are "others" of some sort, Aunt Edith's gay friends, the Jewish family in the building whose young son is her only friend, and, of course, Beauty. Her lack of understanding of the outside forces of Apartheid, her refusal to embrace the racism of the time, and her growing humanity are hopeful, shining pieces of her character. And her delightful malapropisms give the novel some much needed levity. Beauty's narration is gorgeously wrought, a mother desperate for her daughter no matter the consequences. Her own growing understanding of what drove Nomsa and her pride in that fight, even if she wished that her daughter had just put her head down and avoided such attention, was beautifully rendered. Despite the hardship and tragedy and uncertainty she has faced, Beauty remains a woman full of love, for her children, for her people, and even for orphaned little Robin.

This is a story of injustice, intolerance, and prejudice. But it's also a story of grief, love, and resilience. The violence shown towards homosexuals and Jews provides additional evidence of the bigotry and racism of the time but it might also serve to dilute the bigger issue of the world of Apartheid and the story didn't really need additional evidence. Robin's inquisitive nature makes it a guarantee that she would initially want to help Beauty find Nomsa but the caper-like events at the end were completely unrealistic and felt a little like Harriet the Spy with far bigger stakes. Over all though, this was a wonderful read, one that sucked me in and kept me turning the pages and if it was a little hard to suspend disbelief at the end, what came before made it forgivable. ( )