Books like At the Crossroads — picked by fans

A special story told (as Jez Alborough brilliantly does) in few words and with rhymes that read just right. A young dog called Sid is so filled with happiness that he flies! But he can’t convince anyone that this has happened. He’s laughed at. “…dogs don’t fly – it can’t be done,” says his teacher. “Dogs don’t fly!” repeat his friends. This leaves Sid alone and sad. But his father comes by. He asks what’s wrong, and it saves the day.

Sid’s dad believes in him. He understands Sid’s free spirit because he shares it. And these two things (literally) lift Sid up again. It’s a wonderful image of the magic a father-son bond can do.

It’s raining. Pete can’t go out to “play ball with the guys.” So he’s in a bad mood. His father thinks it might cheer Pete up to be made into a pizza. He’s right, of course! Dad kneads him and twirls him up in the air. He sprinkles on cheese (actually torn-up bits of paper) and puts him in the oven (actually the sofa).

This is a celebration of the parents’ trick of distracting a grumpy child with a bit of zany humour. (Best trick in the book, as far as I’m concerned.) And what a wonderfully loving, inventive, energetic dad William Steig has created! Pete laughs “like crazy”. And the sun comes out at the end.

One of many memorable picture books from a master of creating dads, mums, children, and all human beings. (Also fairies, in fact.) A family goes walking to a green hill in the city to celebrate baby Oscar’s “six-month birthday.” Bob Graham paints the world as a jumble of different lives, made beautiful by the warmth that can come between them.

In this story, there’s particular attention to moments of grace that children and parents can conjure up, if they want. I love the dirty old-town setting, with its colourful graffiti. And I like the spiky-haired dad. He makes the sandwiches. He gets on with the stuff of the family day. He does it with love. And he’s involved in one of my favourite of all picture book endings. When the kids are asleep, he pushes back the furniture and dances with Mum.

A longer story that is illustrated with great skill and feeling by PJ Lynch. (And it’s another one that brings tears to my eyes most times I read it!) Jonathan Toomey is a wood carver who has moved to a village far from where his wife and baby died. So this is not a typical picture book dad. He is solitary and grieving.

The widow McDowell and her son, Thomas, are newcomers to the village. In their move, they have lost a precious nativity set. So they ask Jonathan Toomey if he will carve them a new one. The carpenter reluctantly agrees. His heart warms to both Thomas and Thomas’s mother. He carves a beautiful replacement nativity set. In the making, he faces his terrible loss. And the final, beautiful image is of the three of them walking side by side on Christmas day with laughter in their eyes.

Phiona once told me that she grew up in Katwe believing that everyone in the world lived in the same desperate circumstances that she did and that if you’re born in Katwe, you are expected to die there. Mathabane was similarly anchored to his poverty-ravaged township of Alexandra outside of Johannesburg. “Kaffir” is an ugly ethnic slur common during Apartheid-era South Africa, a term that the author battled to overcome every day while surviving an environment plagued by gang violence. Mathabane’s salvation was his education (and, similar to Phiona, success in an unlikely sport), which eventually led him to attend college in the U.S., just like Beah, Kamkwamba, and Mutesi.

A brilliant, challenging collection of the writings of the great anti-apartheid activist, who stressed the importance of freeing minds as well as bodies. "Inspirational" is an overused word, but it absolutely fits a work this wise, heartfelt, and urgent.

Biko's friendship with the journalist Donald Woods—immortalised in the film Cry, Freedom—is a testament to the power of the pen, and "I Write What I Like" is Biko at his finest, in his own words.

This book is an intensive examination of "Rhodes Must Fall" – a student-led movement that erupted in South Africa in 2015 to protest the persistence of the legacies of apartheid more than two decades after its formal end.

The movement called for the removal of a statue of settler colonist Cecil Rhodes from the University of Cape Town as a metaphor for the dismantling of these legacies.

I love the book because while it is written in solidarity with the movement’s aim to dismantle white supremacy, it is also deeply attentive to how easily a politics of decolonisation can be misdirected at other marginalised groups – in this case, Black migrants from outside South Africa, who have frequently been at the receiving end of xenophobic violence.      

This novel made me uneasy.

I loved Rosa Burger's character, sympathized with her dilemma, and didn't want to see her harmed. And because she faced agonizing moral choices, I had to question my own. Rosa's parents, anti-apartheid activists in South Africa, were imprisoned; both died in jail. Their cause was just, their sacrifices laudable. I never doubted my own opposition to apartheid, but that was easy from a distance; I can't know what I would have done if I had lived there.

How can I judge Rosa for choosing her own path, even a frivolous one, away from both politics and her troublesome country? And can I judge her if she later goes home, becomes active, and risks her parents' fate? But then I wonder, are people who replicate their parents' life choices inauthentic? Shouldn't they think for themselves?

This is one of my favorite books ever. I’ve read it many times, and it’s 500 pages long. The voice of the first-person narrator is so delightful I get hooked on the first page. Set in South Africa, Peekay is the ultimate underdog.

Emotionally deserted by his mom at boarding school, he doesn’t even know his own name and calls himself P.K. He’s a white English kid bullied by the dominant Dutch-descendant Boers as Apartheid (Governmental violent, oppressive racism) becomes law.

Peekay grows to become a champion boxer and champions the oppressed. I became obsessed with South Africa and could not look away from this story. It’s a wonderful example of a novel about an athlete, and even when I don’t like the sport, I adore the character and story.

I've loved just about everything that I've read by Gordimer, so it's hard to pick a favorite (The Lying Days is on another of my Shepherd shortlists!), but I've chosen one of her later titles here for balance.

One of the Novel Laureate's great post-apartheid works, this is a book with implications sadly not particular to South Africa—about freedom and accountability, love and family, and the normalization of violence. The style is a little unorthodox and can be tricky to follow, but Gordimer rewards readers who make the effort, which, to my mind, is very much worth the struggle.