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Product Description
Quill & Quire
In 1972, Idi Amin had a dream in which God told him to expel Uganda’s 80,000 ethnic Indians. They had 90 days to leave. Set during this tumultuous period, Child of Dandelions is a stirring coming-of-age novel that follows 15-year-old Sabine as she copes with the reality that she and her family are no longer welcome in the land of her birth. Shenaaz Nanji, who was born in Kenya and now lives in Calgary, carefully builds tension during this 90-day countdown. On day one, when Sabine watches a crowd cheer the announcement, her best friend Zena (who is African) calmly tells her not to worry, since Amin only wants to get rid of Indians with a British passport. But as the days go by, Sabine realizes that there’s an even darker side to the expulsion order: first her beloved uncle goes missing, then soldiers burst into her home searching for her businessman father. Drawing on her own experiences for this, her first YA novel, Nanji creates a nuanced story that addresses issues of class and race.Indian shopkeepers ignore Zena, the girls’ friendship becomes strained, and she realizes her own parents treat their servants the way they would untouchables in India. Sabine’s family must make some difficult choices, and she and her younger brother get separated from their parents. Though she keeps the graphic details to a minimum, Nanji deftly depicts Sabine’s anxiety. The novel’s only weak spot is the too-tidy airport reconciliation between Zena and Sabine. Otherwise, Nanji dramatizes an episode that brought thousands of refugees to Canada, and she highlights the horrors they and others faced. The novel ends with a postscript that suggests the exiled Indians were the lucky ones, given the estimated half-a-million Ugandans who were killed during the Amin regime.
Review
A stirring coming-of-age novel. (Quill & Quire )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.5 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A real page-turner, Sep 17 2008
By A. Simpson - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Child of Dandelions (Hardcover)
Child of Dandelions is a heart-rending story of Sabine - a teenager living in Uganda. Nanji's storytelling is pure and Sabine's (mis)adventure is full of the sights and sounds of Uganda in the 1970s when Idi Amin ordered the expulsion of some 80,000 Indians.Nanji - a children's book author has made an impressive debut into the Young Adult genre with her new book!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic Storytelling!, Jun 23 2008
By John Henry - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Child of Dandelions (Hardcover)
Wow. Highly recommended. My grade 7 and 8 students were thoroughly engaged with this book. One of them was so inspired that she is visiting Africa this summer with her family.A very rich story that illustrates a historical period that has been completely overlooked in the West. It is especially successful in touching issues of class, race and nationhood.
Despite the violence and chaos that this tragedy created, I love how Nanji tells the story without issuing judgment.
This book also helped my students understand life in Africa, which is something we don't come across much in our curriculum.
A must read.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Historically Authentic, A Story of Human Courage, Jun 23 2009
By Mohamed Mughal - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Child of Dandelions (Hardcover)
Having lived through the 1972 expulsion of Indians from Uganda as a nine year old, I can attest to the authenticity of the settings, scenes, dialogue, events and characters in Child of Dandelions. But this novel is much more than the sum of its well-written parts; it's more than the riveting narrative of a physical exodus. Through the character of Sabine, Nanji effectively conveys the emotional journey of this courageous fifteen-year-old girl in the midst of political turmoil and geographic upheaval. Although Sabine and her family are the ones being expelled from the country of their birth because of the color of their skin, in one scene Sabine watches her family's servant through new eyes, eyes re-opened by the intense circumstances of the day, and she realizes "She and her family had been treating the Africans like the untouchables in India. Katana could not share their utensils, could not use their washroom. As if he'd pollute them. Every day he waited until they finished their meal; then he cleared the table, washed the dishes, and sat on the kitchen floor to eat the leftovers or cook the bubbling white ugali, a corn mush. Sabine's face felt hot with shame. It was not only Mr. Singh or Lalita who were prejudiced, but she and her family as well." (p. 135)Child of Dandelions soars as a story of courage and self-discovery, a historically based tale of fiction that remembers a largely forgotten racial injustice that unfolded in full view of the global community in the early 1970s, a well-written, even-handed and authentic narrative that documents the perspectives and experiences of those who suffered and overcame the brutal expulsion of Indians from Uganda.
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