When the Ground is Hard

The publisher says...

Adele loves being one of the popular girls at Keziah Christian Academy. She knows the upcoming semester at school will be great with her best friend Delia at her side. Then Delia dumps her for a new girl with more money, and Adele is forced to share a room with Lottie, the school pariah, who doesn't pray and defies teachers' orders. As they share a copy of Jane Eyre, Lottie's gruff exterior and honesty grow on Adele, and together they take on bullies and protect each other from the vindictive and prejudiced teachers. When a boy goes missing on campus, Adele and Lottie must work together to solve the mystery, in the process learning the true meaning of friendship.

The author says...

Writing When the Ground is Hard was both easy and hard. The book is set in a mixed race boarding school at the bottom end of what was then the British Protectorate of Swaziland. I attended a mixed race boarding school in the boondocks and my memories of the class/race divisions that split the student body, the bad food and the endless marches from class to church are still strong in my mind. Writing the setting was the easy part. All I had to do was close my eyes and remember the dirt roads and the student dormitories stretched under a wide sky.  

Writing the emotional lives of my characters, Lottie and Adele, was much harder. Three generations of my family had attended the same mixed race school and the ground was soaked with our history. To write real flesh and blood characters, I had to dig up painful memories from the past and look them in the face. My first draft fell flat because I wasn’t ready to confront the sadness that comes with being stuck between black and white and the real dangers that come with being a powerless teenager in a dangerous place.  

My second draft was guided by one simple aim. I wanted my aunties to read When the Ground is Hard and say, ‘Yes, that’s true. That happened to us.’ When the book was published my Aunty M called me. She said, “I’d like to say that I’m crying for the girls in the book but I’m crying for myself… for the too smart brown girl who was terrified of the world and what it could do to her.” Her response made me happy and sad and ultimately, proud that I had given voice to the women in my family who walked the long road before me and helped to smooth the way. 

The CBCA judges say...

Set in a boarding school in 1960s Swaziland, this novel deftly explores complex structures of race, class and gender. While the setting of a small country in Africa will be foreign to most readers, the power play between teenage girls is universal and recognisable and the added element of a missing boy moves the book into the mystery genre and will be sure to hold the reader’s attention. The setting is evocative, and the author uses rich language to portray an experience of Africa that many readers will not be familiar with. The main character undergoes a significant journey of personal growth and exploration during which she is forced to confront her own prejudices and question the societal structures that navigate her life. Lyrical prose, excellent sense of place, important themes explored with sensitivity and the author’s unique perspective gives us a book with high literary merit and a fresh view of the teenage experience.

Our Reading Time reviewers say...

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Teaching Notes for the book…

The publisher has generously made teaching resources available for this book. Click on the icon below to view these resources.