Fiction is a very good way of exploring reality, especially different viewpoints. I tend to do a lot of research before I create a story and characters that are fictional. So my stories are true in the sense that everything that happens could happen. That was why at the beginning of Journey to Jo’burg there are two press cuttings about real children who made incredible journeys to find their mothers. I am interested in children who struggle against injustice and other difficulties wherever they are. Over the years I have learned about Nigeria through friends and some very fine writers. However the soldiers who stole power for many years destroyed much that was good, including people who spoke out against them. After they executed the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa, I began to think about a story which involved the children of an outspoken journalist. I wanted to explore how these children would cope with being thrown from a comfortable family in Lagos to becoming – overnight – refugees alone in London. Banned by the apartheid government in South Africa, this is the story of two children’s courage and determination to find their mother and bring her home.

Naledi is upset by everything she has heard and seen, but she is also grateful that she is learning so much about her mother and her world.

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In reality, if you dig deeper, you will learn that this was a journey of self-discovery and awareness for them. They learned firsthand about apartheid because in Johannesburg they experienced it! They finally saw what their mother's job is like. They accidentally got on the white bus and were yelled at and were told they were stupid. They meet a girl who introduced them to the idea of freedom. They realized that there is a lot about South Africa that they don't know, which their schools are not teaching them. When I sent two copies of my first children’s book to nephews and nieces in South Africa in 1985, they never received the parcel. Instead, my sister-in-law received a letter telling her that the books had been seized and banned. However Journey to Jo’burg soon found its way into many different countries, in English and in translations, so that hundreds of thousands of children elsewhere were soon reading it. It was only after the release of Nelson Mandela from jail that the book was unbanned. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (French former tennis player) has no apparent relation to South Africa (I think I assumed he had). Grace helps them find their mother’s workplace and offers them a place to spend the night in Soweto. When Naledi and Tiro find their mother, they learn she is a maid for a wealthy white family. Their mother is able to get time off, beginning the next day, to take her children home and help Dineo.

Nelson Mandela, 1964 and 1990 https://beverleynaidoo.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Beverly-Naidoo-Refugee-Council-Turning18.mp3 The author Beverley Naidoo has an interesting life story: born into a white family in South Africa, she took part in the anti-apartheid movement as a student, was jailed for 8 weeks, then left the country for the UK. She married a man from Indian descent: their union would have been ”a crime” under the apartheid laws (I'm guessing like Trevor Noah's parents'). Naidoo sent this book to family in South Africa, the book was forbidden (”undesirable publication”). Some letters show strong identification, like this one from a boy who, I feared, might have got himself into deep water like Femi in Web of Lies: The similarities between the lives of Femi and myself left me wondering. Wondering how two people can be so similar, wondering about how you know so much about what young boys are going through… When I sent two copies of my first children’s book to nephews and nieces in South Africa in 1985, they never received the parcel. Instead, my sister-in-law received a letter telling her that the books had been seized and banned.In a social studies or history class, Journey to Jo’Burg could be used to compare and contrast the history of South Africa with that of the U.S.A. Similar themes include class divisions by race, segregation and apartheid, police abuse and brutality, the fight for civil rights, protests, etc. It could specifically trigger a lesson on protests like the Soweto Uprising, in which students protested the structurally racist and oppressive education system and were killed. Before they leave, Naledi’s friend Poleng gives them sweet potatoes to eat on their trip. She also agrees to tell Nono where they’ve gone once they’re safely away. Naledi and Tiro don’t want Nono and Mmangwane to be angry with them or keep them from going. My knowledge about South Africa until reading this YA book? Roger Federer has some connections with the country (wiki: his mother is from there); Nelson Mandela; Charlize Theron; 2010 FIFA World Cup (vuvuzela...); of course apartheid. But this was pretty much it. (I know of some famous writers from the country, but never read any of them. Yes.)