Charlie's House

This book will haunt the reader. The children found it hard going, but returned to it again and again. It is tough for it's based on the experiences of a real Charlie, who lived for six years in a leaky iron shelter in a South African township. Niki Daly's illustrations are a brilliant representation of the writer's concept - the child is not devalued in any way and his efforts and creation are treated as seriously as they should be, with no patronising humour or sentimentality. The special house he creates in his backyard, made out of mud and bits and pieces of rubbish, is almost unbearably poignant to adult eyes but much examined and admired by the children. The infants who shared this book mostly took it at face value - as a story about a boy who lived a very different kind of life from themselves - but there were some who started to question . . .