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    Journey to Jo’Burg
    Journey to Jo’Burg
    Journey to Jo’Burg
    Ebook101 pages1 hour

    Journey to Jo’Burg

    By Beverley Naidoo

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    This is the story of love, commitment and the flowering of the human spirit against the background of South Africa’s apartheid.

    Frightened that their baby sister Dineo will die, thirteen-year-old Naledi and her younger brother Tiro run away from their grandmother to Johannesburg to find their mother, who works there as a maid. Their journey illustrates at every turn the grim realities of apartheid – the pass laws, bantustans, racism, the breakdown of family life.

    The opulence of the white “Madam’s” house contrasts starkly with the reality that Naledi and Tiro face – that their baby sister is suffering from starvation, not an incurable disease.

    This edition of Beverley Naidoo’s classic story includes a special “Why You’ll Love This Book” introduction by Michael Rosen, the Children’s Laureate.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateMay 26, 2011
    ISBN9780007368853
    Journey to Jo’Burg
    Author

    Beverley Naidoo

    Beverley Naidoo joined the resistance to apartheid as a student in South Africa, leading to detention without trial and exile in England. She is the author of the widely popular Journey to Jo’burg, the Carnegie Medal winner The Other Side of Truth, its sequel, Web of Lies, and the award-winning books Out of Bounds, No Turning Back, and Burn My Heart. Visit her online at www.beverleynaidoo.com.

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    Reviews for Journey to Jo’Burg

    3.5/5

    62 ratings6 reviews

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    • 3/5
      this was a quick read
    • 4/5
      Naledi and Tiro know the only one who can save their sick baby sister is their mother, and she is off working in far away Johannesburg. So the two head off to find their mother. On the way they face many trials and make new friends. A 1001 CBYMRBYGU.
    • 3/5
      I liked this book because of its plot, and that it pushes readers to broaden their perspectives. The book tells the story of siblings Naledi and Tiro and how they make their way to Johannesburg from their village. When they first realized that their baby sister was ill, Naledi and Tiro went against their grandmother’s rules and decided to travel to Johannesburg by foot, to inform their Mma of their younger sister’s illness. Since they live in a village far away from the city, the siblings are unaware of what is happening during this time of the Apartheid. As they find their mother, who works as a servant for a white family, they begin to understand what is really happening in their country. Black people are not being given the same rights as white people. For example, Black children only go to school to learn how to become servants, instead of learning about math or history. Eventually the children and their Mma are reunited and are able to get their baby sister to the hospital. The trip left Naledi with many thoughts as to what she can do to change the outcome of her life, and her people. For instance, she thought that she had every right to become a doctor and help cure sick people. I feel that this book can push readers to think about tough issues because the Apartheid was a very scary time in South Africa, and life was extremely hard for Black people. Even though the story does not talk about the detailed events of the Apartheid, such as murders and wars, readers can still think about what was happening during this time period, and may want to learn more about it. I feel that the main idea of this story is to remind readers how important family is. Naledi and Tiro took many risks just to be able to save their baby sister. For example, the children could have easily been taken by police, since they were not supposed to be traveling alone and in certain parts of the city. I think this story can help readers understand the perspectives of Black people living during the Apartheid and what they had to go through just to help feed and care for their family members.
    • 5/5
      A children's book about Apartheit.Originally written in 1985, this book was not historical fiction but a description of life as it was in South Africa at the time. The author wanted to teach young children about the unacceptable policy of Apartheit that separated Africans from Caucasians purely by colour.The wealth was all in the hands of the 'Whites', while the labour was done by the 'Blacks' who worked long hours for little pay and lived under apalling conditions.Naledi and her brother Tiro are just 13 and 9 when their baby sister Dineo falls seriously sick with fever and malnutrition. Their mother is working hundreds of miles away in Johannesbug but this does not deter these brave young children from deciding to make the journey to bring their mother back to save Dineo.On the way they experience many of the realities of Apartheit that they had been shielded from in their small isolated village - the segregation by colour, the Pass Card that must be carried at all times and the poverty in the face of so much wealth. This is where the strength of this book lies; as a learning tool for today's children.Probably best suited for 9 to 10 yr olds it provides plenty of opportunity for learning about this era in history and perhaps ensuring that such inhumanities are not repeated.
    • 5/5
      This short chapter was a pretty easy read and would be a great beginning chapter book for readers. Two children set out on their own to travel to Jo'Burg, where their mother works, to bring her home to their sick younger sister. They get into some adventures on the way and eventually return to their village. The characters were easy to relate to and the bond they shared was that of all siblings. The book had great references for some of the language translations and maps of the area discussed in the story. There were some black and white illustrations that captured certain major scenes of the story.
    • 5/5
      This one is an incomplete book! It's one of my daughter's school books, written and set in the mid-1980s, when apartheid still infected the country of South Africa. It concerns the story of two children, who run away from their village to the city of Johannesburg in order to find their mother. It's a quick travelogue of some of the abuses black people were suffering at that time. Why I call it incomplete is that the ending is less than happy. There's no freedom won for the family or the nation, only the hope that the children might join in the fight against the unjust system and that one day that dream may be realized. Well, now it's 20 years later and we know that things are better. I would love to read a sequel to see what happened to the family. Anyway, while this book is dated, the evil of discrimination is not. This journey is still worth checking out.--J.

    Book preview

    Journey to Jo’Burg - Beverley Naidoo

    HarperCollins Children’s Books Logo

    First published in the United Kingdom by Longman Group Ltd in 1985

    First published by Collins, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers in 1987

    First published by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2022

    Published in this ebook edition in 2022

    HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

    1 London Bridge Street

    London SE1 9GF

    www.harpercollins.co.uk

    HarperCollinsPublishers

    1st Floor, Watermarque Building, Ringsend Road

    Dublin 4, Ireland

    Copyright © Beverley Naidoo/Canon Collins Educational Trust for South Africa 1985

    Illustrations copyright © Lisa Kopper

    A Note from the Author copyright © Beverley Naidoo 1999

    Why You’ll Love This Book copyright © Michael Rosen 2008

    Journey to Jo’burg is published by arrangement with Longman Group Ltd, London

    Cover illustrations copyright © Andy Bridge 2016

    Cover design copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016

    All rights reserved

    Beverley Naidoo asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.

    A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

    All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

    Source ISBN: 9780007263509

    Ebook Edition © May 2022 ISBN: 9780007368853

    Version: 2022-05-05

    In memory of two small children who died far away from their mother … and to Kentse Mary Sebate, their Mma, who worked in Jo’burg.

    CONTENTS

    Cover

    Title Page

    Copyright

    Dedication

    Why You’ll Love This Book

    1. Naledi’s Plan

    2. The Road

    3. Oranges!

    4. Ride on a Lorry

    5. The City of Gold

    6. A New Friend

    7. Mma

    8. Police

    9. The Photograph

    10. Grace’s Story

    11. Journey Home

    12. The Hospital

    13. Life and Death

    14. Waiting

    15. Hope

    More than a Story

    Footnotes

    Keep Reading …

    About the Author

    Books by Beverley Naidoo

    About the Publisher

    The history of children’s books is full of wonderful and extraordinary stories, but it has to be said that a great majority of these are about one tiny, narrow band of the human race: middle-class western European and American people. Of course, our massively popular folk tales talk of peoples struggling to survive – think Hansel and Gretel, for example – but once novels for children started to be written, the authors tended to write about people like themselves. This is not a complaint – I do it myself! However, when a book comes in front of us that does that rare thing of talking of people with a way of life utterly distant from this western European type, it’s my view that we should celebrate it.

    When Beverley Naidoo wrote Journey to Jo’burg, South Africa was a place that had a very special kind of political structure: it was ruled by a white elite that had its origins in two countries – Britain and Holland. So, the two languages of those who ruled were English and a form of Dutch called Afrikaans. There was also a big minority of people of Eastern European Jewish origin, they tended to speak English rather than Afrikaans. But the large majority of people living under this rule came from the many nations of Africans – people like the Tswana and the Zulus – who had been living on the continent of Africa long before the British or Dutch had come to settle and rule there. The system of rule was called apartheid, an Afrikaans word meaning something like ‘separateness’. However, this makes apartheid sound as if it was just a matter of living separately; it was far from it. It meant something much more stark and cruel: the white people of European origin were the only ones who benefited from the system. They invented hundreds of rules that tried to ensure that white people and black people were kept apart. This meant that there were many places – like the best swimming pools, shops, schools and colleges – where black people were not allowed to go. But in the end it was apartheid itself that fell apart! Nelson Mandela, who had fought against the system, was released from prison and the black people of South Africa won the right to vote.

    So, Journey to Jo’burg has become a different kind of book. When Beverley wrote it, it was a book that threw light

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