I am a fan of Trevor Noah. Who isn’t? Well, maybe Donald Trump.
Anyway, I read his book Born a Crime this week. Not sure how I managed it, being a teacher in a pandemic era, but I did, mostly out of sheer desperation. I needed an escape from the never-ending prep.
So, Trevor…well, I had high expectations coming into this reading. I mean, the man is hilarious and incredibly clever, so why wouldn’t I? Verdict? He did not disappoint.
Trevor (and I only use his first name, because I follow him so closely, I feel like I know him) is masterful in his ability to coherently weave a narrative. There is none of the frou-frou that many an author might succumb to. He tells it like it is and then…next chapter.
This book is organized into chapters that bounce around a bit chronologically, but make sense through the larger narrative of the life-telling that Trevor engages in. Perhaps the two things that stood out to me the most were his no-bs bit and his raw account of life growing up in South Africa. I mean you’ve heard the word “apartheid” bandied about right? I have too. I know about apartheid, mostly that it was bad and that Nelson Mandela had something to do with it going out of style (I wax sarcastic here), but Trevor shocks the conscience in his “Meh, that’s just the way it was” kind-of way. He does not lament the suffering he encountered, or the injustices heaved upon his people, the black people, the coloured people of South Africa. No, he merely presents the facts, saves the commentary for a few high-adrenaline moments and then ping-pongs back and forth between philosophical and really real.
Why should you read this book? Because, you have no excuse not to. It paints a stark picture of racism, of colonialism and of white privilege at the cost of black lives. You should read it because everyone has a moral responsibility to educate themselves about that which they know nothing of, but that which they must know of because it affects society and their neighbour.
If you are a teacher reading this, your students should read this book too. There is a version of the book that is adapted for young readers as well. If your students are grade 7 and up, this is a book that is both badass, because Trevor gets up to real badass sh*t, and painfully relevant. I mean, toss out the To Kill a Mockingbirds and the Great Gatsbys (both really good books if you’re asking), because their time is done. It’s time we allow our students to see themselves in the books they read. It’s time we properly educate them about what goes on in other countries so when they encounter differences, they choose to understand, not differentiate.
Read Born a Crime, and then maybe drop a comment with your take on it?
Cheers.
Books 'n' Nooks 