Hum if You Don't Know the Words

Hum if You Don't Know the Words
Bianca Marais

One word: okay, two: READ THIS!

This wonderful novel is set in apartheid-era South Africa of the 1970's. Be very glad you did not live there at that time!  

The story centres around two main characters: Robin, a 9-year old white girl whose parents are murdered by blacks during the Soweto uprising and Beauty, a black educated woman, a teacher, who loses her 19-year old daughter to the militants' cause in the black uprising and is desperate to recover her.

The lives of these two characters merge and the story is heart-wrenching. 

The author, a South African by birth, has landed in Canada and has taken a creative writing course through the School of Continuing Studies at the University of Toronto. She has learned her lessons well because the novel is hard to put down, the emotional impact is significant. I dare you to read this novel and not be moved.