Grandad Mandela

Gr 2–5—To celebrate what would have been Nelson Mandela's 100th birthday, his daughter and her grandchildren have crafted a short collection of straightforward questions about his life, imprisonment, and role in ending apartheid in South Africa. This child-friendly introduction to the topic of apartheid, with collage-style paintings and sketches by Qualls, demonstrates the simplification of momentous historical events and cultural concepts down to small and digestible kernels of truth. When readers meet Zazi and Ziwelene Mandela, they are playing at their grandmother's house. After stumbling across a photo of their famous great-grandfather they began to pepper their grandmother, who is his youngest daughter, with questions about his life, her own memories, and the historical and cultural context that preceded Mandela's presidency. She patiently responds to each question with heartfelt examples that help the children to connect their family's past to their present. Her references to jellied candies and cake, school days, volunteerism, and family life are illustrations that her grandchildren can readily connect to their own lives, and child readers are likely to do the same. By cleverly formatting the story as a conversation between two candid grandchildren and their elder, the Mandelas are able to present challenging topics with ingenuity and warmth.