Waiting For Rain - By Sheila Gordon

This novel about life in South Africa is sure to give readers a better understanding of what lies behind the newspaper headlines and TV stories. Tengo is the 10-year-old son of workers on Oom Koos's large farm in the Transvaal. He longs to go to school like his friend Frikkie, who visits his uncle's farm on holidays. But Tengo's family is too poor to pay for the education that comes free to whites. He finally gets his wish at age 14. Tengo goes to live with his cousin in a squalid township outside Johannesburg and studies furiously. After three years, he is almost ready for college, but a year-long school boycott ruins his chances and he is drawn into the fight against apartheid. When he and Frikkie meet in a violent confrontation, Tengo realizes that he will carry on the struggle for freedom as a scholar, not a soldier. The writing here is powerful, evoking in minute detail daily life and the broad landscapes of the country. But the subtle implication throughout is that readers should resent and grow to hate the whites for not seeing what we can see through our "enlightened" eyes: the unfair ways that blacks are viewed and treated. The reader is sometimes too aware that Gordon has manipulated the plot to make her point. But the point is well made nonetheless; this is a persuasive statement about the ongoing tragedy of South Africa.


Summary and Review by: Publishers Weekly- Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc


Waiting For Rain, By Sheila Gordon. Laurel Leaf, 1996.


This would be a great book to bring to the classroom since it deals with multiculturalism through another country. So many books are focusing on the United States but sometimes we forget to consider what is going on in the worlds around us, or even this history of the world around us (if it does not involve us). This is a great story about relationships, bias', and understanding more than just propaganda.