4 unabridged cds (4:47)
2006/ 2007 Random House audio
180 pgs.
Goodreads rating: 3.97
My rating: 2/It was okay
For: kids
Genre: Magical realism
Setting: contemporary South Africa
My comments: I was hoping to read this aloud to my class, but it starts a little too brutally for my 4th graders (within the first few pages a raging house fire kills the protagonist's parents). Pretty harsh. Then, when Martine's whisked off to south Africa to live with the grandmother she never knew existed (?? - give me a break), that grandmother treats her quite harshly. And later we're expected to believe that this woman loves this young girl? Martine is really quite sneaky and is given free reign of the jungle? Then, to top it all off, "magical reality" raises its eerie head, making the white giraffe - and its peculiar relationship with Martine - magical. Just didn't do it for me, and won't for a lot of kids, but probably some will just love it. I'll have it available during my Africa unit, but won't be reading it aloud.
Goodreads summary: When Martine’s home in England burns down, killing her parents, she must go to South Africa to live on a wildlife game preserve, called Sawubona, with the grandmother she didn’t know she had. Almost as soon as she arrives, Martine hears stories about a white giraffe living in the preserve. But her grandmother and others working at Sawubona insist that the giraffe is just a myth. Martine is not so sure, until one stormy night when she looks out her window and locks eyes with Jemmy, a young silvery-white giraffe. Why is everyone keeping Jemmy’s existence a secret? Does it have anything to do with the rash of poaching going on at Sawubona? Martine needs all of the courage and smarts she has, not to mention a little African magic, to find out. First-time children’s author Lauren St. John brings us deep into the African world, where myths become reality and a young girl with a healing gift has the power to save her home and her one true friend.
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