Somehow Tenderness Survives: Stories of Southern Africa

This collection of short stories tells about the pain of living under the system of apartheid, from all points of view. Some of these stories are about black people who have to live as inferiors for their entire lives, while others are about white people who realize what kind of system this really is. No matter what side the speaker of the story is on, all of the stories tell of realization and pain and they exhibit over and over again what a bad way to live apartheid was. I liked that each story was slightly different--some were about the rich, others about the poor, and every author had a different theme and a different purpose. I didn't feel like I was reading the same thing over and over. I tend to not like short stories, though, because they don't have the time to develop the characters to the extent I'd like. I'm always left wondering what happened to the characters after each story ends.

I was forced to read this book when I was in 6th grade; a few of the stories were selected by our reading teacher, and we were to read and comment on them. Given that it was a school assignment, I was not looking forward to it. However, I ended up devouring the entire book that same night. Growing up in a suburban middle-class white neighborhood meant I had never encountered the issues of apartheid and racism that the characters in this novel endured. Needless to say, I cried while reading the majority of those stories. It really opened my eyes to a world very different from my own, where it wasn't safe to be black in a country that was predominantly black. For the last four years, I taught special education in a junior high and a high school, and I used at least one of these stories each year to give my students a different perspective, and to help teach empathy. I highly recommend this book.

This book was very interesting to read. It consists of stories written by different authors that are all about South Africa and its justice system. My personal favorite story in this book was called, "the toilet." Sometimes the stories dragged on and were annoying, but overall its a fun read.

In this book the story of each person is vividly told. This book is a true tear jerker, but in a very good way. I beleive that it should be read in every classroom in the world.