The Other Side of Truth

This is such a powerful children’s book. I’m quite ashamed to say that I haven’t read a fiction novel about people seeking asylum in Britain before. How these two children were treated upon their arrival was difficult to read. At one point the siblings are abandoned, lost and alone, asking for directions but no one will help them and it hurt my heart to know that in busy London, when you’re just trying to battle the crowds, this could be easily done. They don’t know the customs, they get robbed and they don’t know where to go, or who can help them. I’m just relieved this story had a happy ending because I don’t think I could have coped otherwise. The sad reality is that happy endings don’t come for everyone in similar show more situations. show less

On the opening page of this riveting novel, 12-year-old Sade's mother is murdered, the victim of a corrupt Nigerian government that is seeking to prevent Sade's journalist father from writing about the oppression there. Little more than 24 hours later, Sade and her ten-year-old brother, Femi, are alone on the streets of London. They were smuggled out of Nigeria for their own safety. But the plans to deliver them into their uncle's care have gone terribly wrong. They are exiles, perhaps even orphans, and numb with grief. They end up in the foster care system, where adults genuinely want to help them. Yet Sade knows -- for their own safety and the safety of their father, who may or may not have escaped -- that she can't reveal who she and show more her brother really are. Then Sade learns that her father is in London. He escaped from Nigeria under a false name. Now the Nigerian government claims he murdered his wife, and the British government is holding him for extradition. What lengths will Sade go to persuade people of the truth? All that her father and mother taught her haunts, and eventually fortifies, Sade as she feels her way through life as a refugee. Beverley Naidoo's moving novel works on multiple levels, from its bracing indictment of political corruption and oppression to its portrait of two children reeling from grief and shocking change. The story ends with Sade and Femi reunited with their father. (CCBC 2002).

Won Carnegie Medal (United Kingdom) 2000 show less

In Lagos twelve year old Sade and her ten year old brother Femi are getting ready for school when they hear the sound of shots: they find their mother lying dead in their father's arms in their driveway, after getting in the way of a bullet meant for her husband, a journalist on an English language newspaper who has received death threats for his criticism of the Nigerian government. Within hours further death threats have been received and Sade's father, Folarin Solaja, decides that both he and his children must leave the country at once. The same night the children are given into the care of a woman who will smuggle them into Britain where they can live with their uncle who teaches at a London college, while their father will travel show more separately under a false passport as his own has been siezed by the government. But when the children arrive in London their uncle does not meet them at Heathrow and they are abandoned by their so-called protector; when they attempt to trace their uncle at his college he has disappeared and has not been seen for a week. Wondering alone late at night on the streets of London the children are eventually found by police, and passed into the hands of social services to find them emergency accomodation. Not knowing whether their father has escaped from Nigeria they are frightened to give their real names, but as they are clearly traumatised they are granted temporary permission to stay in Britain and placed with a foster family. But what has happened to their uncle and will they be reunited with their father...

Much of the book deals with Sade's experience as she attempts to settle at her new school, where she is bullied by some of her new classmates, and the parallels between this and her father's experiences standing up to the authorities in Nigeria, give the books its title. Because she is from Africa she is assumed not to speak English, and not to able to spell her own name, whereas in fact Sade has been brought up speaking English as well as Yoruba from birth, and is a well-educated girl who attended a good school in Lagos. These assumptions don't seem particularly racist in character, as some of the bullies are Caribbean in origin, but seem more to reflect the stereotypes that children might pick up about Africa given what is normally seen on the television. I was particularly interested in the portrayal of schools in the U.K. versus schools in Nigeria as I work closely with someone of Nigerian origin who has sent her own children to boarding school there in preference to them attending the schools locally. Saying that in my son's class there are three children from Nigeria who have gone the other way.

Altogether a good YA read, with some similarities to Pigeon English that I read earlier in the year. show less

In a single moment. Sade's entire world is shattered by the same bullets that kill her mother. Forced to flee for their lives, Sade and her brother journey to England. Leaving behind their home and family in Nigeria is hard enough, but as they soon learn, escaping injustice is much harder...
'A marvelous read...that refuels the desire for justice and freedom.'

Sade lives in Nigeria with her mother (a nurse), her father (a journalist), and her younger brother, Femi. Her father writes articles for the last remaining newspaper in Nigeria that dares to publish the truth about Nigeria's brutal military government.

When their mother is killed by government gunmen, their father hires a woman to pose as their mother and smuggle them into London, where they will stay with an uncle. Their father plans to join them as soon as he can get a fake passport.

Sade and Femi make it to London, but are left alone when their uncle does not meet them at the airport. After some scary experiences while wandering around a strange new city, they are taken in by a government agency that works with refugees. Not wanting show more to put their father in danger back in Nigeria, they lie about their last name and hometown. When their father makes it to London, he is imprisoned for entering the country with a fake passport.

This is a beautifully written novel and the descriptions and metaphors are stunning. The only part of the story that didn't work for me was the fact that Sade, so brave and true to herself when it comes to bringing her father's story to light, does the opposite when faced with bullies at school. Perhaps it was more realistic the way Naidoo wrote it, but I really wanted to see Sade stand up to her personal bullies just like her dad.

This is a compelling and moving novel. A must-read. show less

Really loved this book. Probably could've read it all in one sitting if I'd had the time.

There were a few places where I could have cried, Naidoo did a really good job of writing the character so you sympathised with her.

The course materials mention a sequel which deals with Femi which I would like to read as he's so closed off in this book that sooner or later all that anger and hurt will have to come out.

Really interesting book to study too, decided to use it as one of the books to write about in my essay.

Was surprised to learn Beverley Naidoo is a white South African, I was expecting her to be Nigerian as the book felt very personal.

The main characters are Sade and her younger brother Femi who live in Nigeria. Trouble starts when the mother is murdered in a drive by shooting by members of the military government. This is the culmination of threats made at their journalist father who writes “truth” for a local newspaper. For the safety of the children, who could be the next targets, Sade and Femi are sent to London. The couple who take them to London abandon the children upon arrival and Child Services step in and place them in temporary shelter. Because the children don’t know who to trust and cannot contact the uncle that was supposed shelter them, they give fake names and do not talk about what happened or how they came to be in London. The children don’t show more know if they will ever see their father again and are troubled by the memory of their mother’s murder and they become targets for bullies in the school they were placed. show less