The Museum of English Literature in South Africa

I first met Crystal Warren when she presented a paper on HIV&AIDS in South African children’s books at the Potchefstroom University conference on children’s literature in 2007. Although I was in the process of leaving South Africa at the time (I had literally moved out of my house, but not yet made it to the airport), I knew we were kindred spirits. When I discovered I would be traveling through Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape recently, I determined to stop and visit her and the marvelous collection at the National Literary Museum where she works.

Out of My Comfort Zone

 As my daughter drove me to the airport, I was suddenly reminded that I was leaving my comfort zone. What have you forgotten? my cramping stomach asked. What all-important detail have you let fall between the cracks? Usually my husband takes care of travel logistics; I am notoriously bad at them. But he was already in Africa.  And he would not be meeting me in Johannesburg to pick up the pieces either.  This time I would be the one to pick him up when he arrived at Oliver Tombo International from Mozambique on Saturday.  I was on my own to pick up the rental car and find my way to the mission guesthouse.

When Christian Leaders Fail

I was a young teen when the pastor of the church we attended had an affair and diverted missions funds to the local building project.  I was shocked to learn that Christians aren’t perfect, that they sin in big ways, and that even Christian leaders fall. In Lorita Boyle’s novel, Bathsheba’s Lament, a woman of ancient Israel struggles with disillusionment when her spiritual leader—a man she admired, whose position she respected, a family friend whose music moved her to worship the Lord God—rapes her and has her husband killed.

Real Life Amish

My husband was strongly influenced by the Anabaptists in his teen years.  My father was raised Quaker. Nevertheless, I have avoided the popular Amish trend in Christian fiction as a nostalgic desire to return to a simpler time and avoid dealing with modern reality.  Dale Cramer’s Paradise Valley is not that.  

A 1921 Ohio law required Amish families to send their children to public schools where they must cut their hair and dress in “Englisher” clothing—a plan which would effectively wipe out the Amish community in a generation. The arguments in this part of the book sounded disturbingly like modern discussions of home schooling vs. ‘godless humanistic classrooms’.  

Red Ink

 It is impossible to read Red Ink, by Kathi Macias without praying for China.  Yang Zhen-Li, imprisoned for telling children about Zhu Yesu (Jesus), is brutalized by a guard determined to prove her god is an illusion.

I remember one of my daughters asking in grade school, “If someone said they would kill me if I said I was a Christian, would it be OK to lie and say I wasn’t, but not to mean it?”  In a small Minnesota town she wasn’t likely to ever face that choice, but many do every day—in Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Columbia and many other places.  This book brings us face to face with that reality and what we can do about it.

Writing for Children of Violence

Kisumu, Kenya, looks like a peaceful city.  It hugs the shore of Lake Victoria, the largest lake in Africa.  Sometimes called “the eye of the rhino,” the lake sits on a plateau in a split of the Great Rift Valley between Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.  When I visited in August, I saw no signs of the violence that swept the city following the December 2007 elections when the Luo candidate for president lost under questionable conditions to the Kikuyu candidate from Nairobi.  But the pain has left deep scars.

Ethnic violence wasn’t confined to the city.  I came to the village of Awasi, an hour east, to teach a workshop on writing for children affected by the violence.  Every morning empty trucks rattle over the dirt road out of town.  They return each afternoon, loaded with cane from local farmers.  Children chase the trucks, hoping for something to fall off.  It usually does.  Life goes on despite the horrors of the past.

Fleece Wrapped Enchiladas

My passion is for school-aged children, but who can resist the little ones with their wide-eyed curiosity and readiness for books and learning?

When I arrived at Tembisa Baptist Church on Wednesday, they lay on the floor in tightly packed rows looking like nothing so much as giant fleece-wrapped enchiladas.  Each child was dressed in multiple layers against the Johannesburg winter and rolled in a brightly colored blanket.  The floor beneath them was spread with crumbling mats of yellowed foam rubber covered with a blanket of doubtful hygiene.  Here and there a canvas shoe stuck out from a bundle.  A few heads raised and bright eyes stared at me.  Most slept on, oblivious to the chatter of the aids who looked after them.  Slowly more and more woke from their nap, and I invited them for a story. How I wish that someone would read to them every day!