Rating: 
Summary: Survival
Review: Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane is truly a compellingly authentic biography. Mark and his fourth class family grew up in Alexandra, South Africa and this is his remarkable memoir of life under apartheid there. This terrifying story describes his struggle to survive under poverty and inhumane conditions, with a tormented father who would beat him for not listening to tribal ways, and a mother set on educating Mark no matter what the sacrifice.
When Mark discovers tennis his world turns around. Practicing everyday, he still manages to be the top student in his class. Mark would have never guessed that playing tennis would fulfill his dream about going to America, but when American people hear about Mark they are willing to pay his fees to go there as well as college tuition.
This biography describes a black person's life so well and from a different perspective. Since I have only read books about Africans through white people's eyes, I have never really understood the pain blacks went through under the system of apartheid. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in an important piece of African history, and a truly remarkable story of a survivor.
Rating:
Summary: required reading
Review: This book should be read by everyone, because it is a great story of success in the face of great adversity. When I originally read this book, South Africa was still in the grip of apartheid. Fortunately, the book is no longer a cry for its end, yet it is still a powerful story of perserverance.
The book, thankfully, is graphic at times but this, of course, is to show what Mathabane came from and was able to overcome. I find it somewhat comical when people read a book about overcoming great adversity and complain because the "before" picture isn't Sunday school. Read this book if you really want an inspiring and accurate social history of apartheid South Africa.
Rating: 
Summary: Too graphic and violent for me to recommend
Review: This was assigned summer reading for my 9th grader and fortunately, I read it first! I do not feel that such graphic desciptions of sex and violence are necessary to portray the circumstances in which Mathabane grew up. I found it a pity, actually, because the story is inspiring yet I could not get past the grapics in the first section. Needless to say, our 9th grader did NOT read this book. As important as it is to educate about the horrors in this world, I firmly believe that if youngsters are given this much graphic exposure we are perpetrating the crime upon their souls. Why can't writers find a way to express themselves in a higher more noble fashion? Then their important stories could be read by all. I can't believe that not one review mentioned this problem!
Rating:
Summary: Amanda-TVHS
Review: Mark Mathabane does a remarkable job explaining the worst nightmares a young black boy from South Africa can face. He grows up in a ghetto neighborhood, where police raids occur in the homes of blacks repeatidly. His family grows up in a shack, with barely any food and clothing. But remarkably, he is a very talented and educated young boy. He scores in the highest percentile in his classes and has a dream to play tennis in America. He finally wins a tennis scholarship and leaves for America to live in freedom.
Rating:
Summary: Kaffir Boy excellent book!
Review: I recently read this book for a summer reading requirement for my sophomore year of high school, and I found it to be a very good description of apartheid in south africa. This book follows a poor black child and his family from about 8 to 18 years of age. I would reccommend this book to anyone intereested in apartheid, or just looking for a good book to read. No matter who you are this book will touch your heart to know what torture blacks in south africa went through during apartheid.
Rating: 
Summary: The archy hurts everyone
Review: Wow. I can't believe Mark Mathabane lived to write this book. Kaffir Boy is truly a tale of survival. Even more incredible to me is that he came away from his nightmarish childhood in South Africa unscathed enough to write about the experience in very lucid and calm prose. I am guessing if it were me in his place I would be beating on pillows in psychotherapy sessions for the rest of my life. Or taking some serious antidepressant medication. My interpretation of this book is that it reveals how patriarchal/matriarchal structures damage and destroy everyone that they touch. Obviously, these structures dominated South Africa's Judeo-Christian white minority and African tribal culture when Mathabane was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s. He has done a wonderful job at revealing how ugly the shame, violence, fear, and exploitation characteristic of patriarchal structures truly are. Everyone abuses everyone else from the top down in apartheid-archy South Africa. Unless you are fortunate enough to be a "bass" (white person in a position of authority), you suffer endless torments and tortures. In an odd way, Kaffir Boy reminded me of Orwell's 1984. Scarily, patriarchal structures allow situations like apartheid to happen in our world right now. All in all, I found this book to be well-crafted and beautifully written. The characters are very round and the entire plot just felt very real to me. A few criticisms: On a some occasions, the writing becomes very didactic--as if the characters are just mouthing Mathabane's philosophy about a this or that situation in South Africa, not being characters in a story. And, the character of Mathabane's mother sometimes confused me. On the one hand, she was supposed to be an illiterate person. But on some pages she came across like a university professor. Odd. Also, the character of Mathabane's father, very much prevalent for the first one hundred or so pages just seems to disapppear after that. And the book seemed to read very slowly for me. It is 350 pages, but often seemed longer. However, these are minor criticisms. This is a great book to read if you don't know much about South Africa's system of apartheid in the 1960s and 1970s and it is just a moving story altogether. As Mathabane says on the first page of the book, "Amandla! Awethu! (Power is ours!)." Words that every human being should feel proud to speak, regardless of race, culture, gender, or age.
Rating:
Summary: An amazing account of the strength of a child...
Review: I picked this book up a few days ago at an autograph signing and have been unable to put it down since I purchased it. This story is so well written that it is almost unbelievable. This is a must read!
Rating:
Summary: Triumph of the human spirit
Review: This is an autobiographical account of life in South Africa during the days of apartheid.It puts a human face to the horrors of apartheid.It is the story of how a boy and his family cope with life in the shantytowns that blacks were forced to live in.It details his experience during police raids,riots during the apartheid struggle and how the system limited the lives of 80% of South African citizens.He also details his experience in school and how he was saved from a life of drudgery and no opportunities by a tennis scholarship to the united states.It is also the story of family.It details the triumph of the human spirit.I recommend this book to anybody interested in knowing what life actually was during apartheid.
Rating:
Summary: A bit hyperbolized, but a heroic story
Review: In "stark prose" (Amazon.com) Mark Mathabane describes his life growing up in a nonwhite ghetto outside Johannesburg, South Africa. He discusses the conditions apartheid foisted on his race, and how he escaped its horrors, eventually winning a tennis scholarship to an American university (which one Mathabane doesn't impart).Mathabane reveals the tragic world of the impoverished blacks who make up most of his country in a way that only someone who has lived such a life can. Although Mathabane was young, he recalls his life vividly, describing with brio his chronic, persistent adversities. His autobiography is inspirational, because throughout, he did not surrender his dreams, his yearning to become, like Arthur Asche, an American tennis star.
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't put it down!
Review: Rarely do I find a book so engaging I can't put it down, but Kaffir Boy kept me interested from the first page. I really appreciated the candid descriptions of life growing up in South Africa. The solid descriptions Mathabane utilizes in this book to dramatize events that happened to him and his family serve to give the reader a good nderstanding as to the horrific nature of life in the urban ghettoes of South Africa. The graphic scenes illustrating sexual and physical abuses which took place in South Africa, rather than being gratuitous and unnecessary, were, in fact, required to get his message across. I highly recommended this one.
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