Wallace, Jason. Out Of Shadows

Wallace, Jason.  Out Of Shadows     

Holiday House     2011  282p  17.95 978-0-8234-2342-2      

 hs/adult    Realistic Fiction       VG     

In post apartheid Zimbabwe,whites must examine their new role in society.  Robert attends a private boys╒school where he must choose sides, support the new governing majority or form an alliance with a splinter group of whites that resists.      In this very complex examination of bullying, prejudice, coming of age and relationships, Jason Wallace gives the reader much to ponder.  The rising action is full of peril for Robert Jacklin, a young boy who, upon arrival at his new school,  tries to stay

neutral but quickly realizes that he must choose sides for self preservation.  His early friends, a young black boy named Nelson and a bullied, pathetic soul named Simpson-Prior succumb to Ivan, Pittman and Klompsie, white supremacists who cannot face the changes in Zimbabwe.  Ivan is the leader, a conniving teen who will put himself in danger to cement a relationship and who thinks of treachery as black and white.  You╒re either his friend or his foe.  His purpose?  He wants to return Zimbabwe to the way it was before the war, to a white supremacist state in which the minority governs.  Wallace has a solid,╥Lord of the Flies╙ type story of how individuals from varied backgrounds come together to become allies; he shares their motivations, their strengths and weaknesses and their beliefs, and truth be told, the ending╒s action-packed, assassination attempt on Mugabe is not even necessary to tell this story.   At each turn of the page, the reader becomes engrossed in the new ways that Ivan fights the changes in school, at home and in his nation.  Is he wrong?  He compares the new regime to Hitler and asks, ╥If you were in front of Hitler with a gun, wouldn╒t you squeeze the trigger?╙  The answers to the conflicts in this book are murky, a direct parallel to the murky decisions we must make as we grow. 

Wallace offers a helpful list of the vocabulary of Zimbabwe at the end, and the

reader will need this to fully comprehend the plot and characterizations.    

      Squaresky, Martha