Waiting for the Rain by Sheila Gordon

Guest Reviewer - Jana, Grade 8S

Can you imagine always being treated badly by other people that think they are more superior to you? That’s exactly what Tengo goes through every single day. Waiting for the Rain is realistic fiction that talks about Tengo, a black boy that lives with his family on a farm somewhere on the South African veld. He doesn’t have that much money and since he’s black and it’s the time of apartheid, he often gets treated very badly by people. His friend, Frikkie, is the total opposite of him. He is white and since he’s the nephew of the owner of the farm, he will someday own it and also own the rights of Tengo and his family since they work on the farm.

Even though Frikkie and Tengo are friends, it is very hard for them since they live in totally different and conflicting worlds. “Tengo never mentioned the books to Frikkie because it shamed him now that even though the two of them were the same age, Frikkie was so much more advanced in schoolwork than he was.” This quote shows how different Tengo and Frikkie are. It makes it very clear that Frikkie is able to do things that Tengo isn’t, in this case being able to go to school and studying.

I thought this book was very interesting. By reading this book I learned a lot about apartheid in Africa and how different blacks and whites were treated. I don’t think the writing style was very hard to understand but sometimes the main theme of the book, apartheid, was difficult to understand since I didn’t know much about it and lots of things were going on at the same time. Overall, I really enjoyed reading Waiting for the Rain and if you’re interested in finding out if Tengo and Frikkie manage to stay friends, you should definitely read this book.