The next day, the children meet with Mma and ride the train back to their home village, telling her all about their journey and what they have learned. In a no name village, two children aged 13 and 9 decide to go to Jo'burg to bring their mother home - the only person able to maybe save their little sister, severely sick for several days. 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. The children have created stories and monologues from the perspective of the main characters and then performed these to create podcasts. It isn't until they reach the city that they come to understand the dangers of their country, and the painful struggle for freedom and dignity that is taking place all around them.

Their journey illustrates at every turn the grim realities of apartheid – the pass laws, bantustans, racism, the breakdown of family life.I have loved reading this book and it has opened my eyes to how a powerful text can underpin half a term’s worth of cross curricular lessons. You could incorporate drama too, perhaps focussing on journeys and the people/experiences they encounter. Journey to Jo’Burg is set in South Africa during the apartheid and tells the story of Naledi and Tiro who, frightened that their baby sister Dineo will die, take a 300km journey to find their mother who works there as a maid.

As they try to take a bus to get to their mom, they are yelled at for trying to get on a ''Whites Only'' bus. They also learn about other inequalities, or situations where two groups of people are not treated in the same way. I had the privilege of ‘meeting’ Beverley Naidoo in a Zoom lecture recently and was so inspired by her and her story I knew I had to pick this book up immediately. It is written from the viewpoint of two young children in South Africa who struggle to understand the injustice they and their families face. 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.I actually almost have up on it because this first time I tried reading it I got confused by the characters and went to sleep! The author was a white girl who knew she would have suffered under Nazi Germany, but just did not realise how her black servants had to live.

Reading the class reader for year 6, this is a good book to start the conversation on what segregation is and to help kids to be deeper thinkers - i think the teacher says for them to be introspective. When their baby sister suddenly becomes very sick, Naledi and Tiro know, deep down, that only one person can save her. They have to stay with their new friend for the night, then travel back with their mother the next day. It's possible I'm overreading these elements, because I was aware going into it that the book was written by a white woman from South Africa.Fortunately they were ok and it was a lovely read, but it left me with a deep sense of sadness for every domestic worker in South Africa.