The Day Gogo Went to Vote

by Elinor Sisulu, Sharon Wilson (Illustrations)

Illustrated in rich pastels, this child's-eye view of an important milestone in South African history allows young readers to experience every detail of this eventful day.

Genres: Picture Books, Africa, Historical Fiction, Childrens, South Africa, Geography, Cultural

32 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1996

About the author

Elinor Sisulu is a writer, human rights activist and political analyst.

She combines training in history, English literature, development studies and feminist theory. She completed her first two degrees at the University of Zimbabwe and studied at the United Nations Institute for Economic Planning and Development (IDEP) in Dakar, Senegal. From 1984-85 she studied for a MA in Development Studies at the Institute of Social Studies at the Hague. During her stint in Holland she met her future husband, ANC activist Max Sisulu, who is the current Speaker of Parliament in South Africa.

Elinor is a member of the Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa (OSISA) board, the National Arts Festival board, the Independent Media Trust of Zimbabwe, and the Anthony Sampson board. She is also a trustee of the Heal Zimbabwe Trust, a South African-based trust that facilitates humanitarian assistance for Zimbabwean refugees in South Africa.

Reviews

[KevinL · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Day Gogo Went to Vote is a very inspirational story about the post apartheid history of South Africa told through the eyes of a little girl Thembi. The story really captures the emotion between Thembi and her great grandmother. The story covers the election of Nelson Mandela and the struggle to be allowed to vote. Even though Thembi great grandmother was elderly, She did not let anything be an excuse for her to miss the first vote. I really like how the author and illustrator took all white space out of the book to really make the reader feel involved in the story. This would be a great addition to an Africa Unit of a unit on African history.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a moving book about the historical event of black people being given the right to vote in South Africa in 1944. The story is seen through the eyes of a little girl Thembi, who at the start of the story expresses her love and care for her Grandmother Gogo. We see the story capture the emotional relationship between the two characters as Thembi supports her Grandmother in her wanting to leave her community in order to vote. Although Gogo is very sick, she shows Thembi the importance of everybody having a right to have their say and the whole community support Gogo's actions with big celebrations once she votes. The fact Wilson has used oil pastels for her illustrations adds to the effect of the time the event took place as they are not of fine-line, bright illustrations we would see in most picture books today. As well as children learning about the incredible milestone in South African history through story, it could also encourages children to talk to their grandparents about any historical or big event that has happened in their lives. Children could bring these stories to the classroom and share.

[Set · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sweet story of a little girl that sees her granny's plight to go vote in Africa. I have a soft spot for any granny but the pictures are very dark and dreary.

[Amy Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible tale of an important event in history that every child should learn about. This book allows children to experience every emotion and part of the journey South Africans experienced to be able to vote. Using this in a classroom would give children a huge insight into the injustice of the nonwhite majority and their rights. The illustrations are beautifully drawn and really capture the emotions felt throughout this book.

[Roxanne Watlington · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Day Gogo Went to Vote" by Elinor Batezat Sisulu is a picture book about a historical event of voting for the president of South Africa. It is seen through the eyes of a little girl named Thembi. The story starts off with Thembi talking about how her "Gogo" means so much to her and what they do together. "Gogo" is Thembi's grandmother who is 100 years old who watches her when her parents go to work. The story is placed in 1994 in South Africa when a new government and president is about to be elected. Gogo is very old but wants to vote since black people in South Africa have fought for many years for the right to vote and it will be her first time to vote for their own leaders and it could be her last. The story continues on Gogo and Thembi's journey on how to get Gogo to go vote since she cannot walk or stand for long.
This story is a moving testament to the courage of the South African people. The pictures are portrayed through pastel illustrations that correlate with the text as each page goes on. This uplifting book shows children what a democracy means which is important to learn about at a young age. The pictures show long lines of people waiting in them to vote for the first time in their lives. The pictures are very detailed and add to the text for children to have a better picture of what is going on. The moving story of Thembi and Gogo's experience on voting I highly recommend to children who are learning about democracy and voting for the first time. It will show children how people struggled all their lives for the right to vote and how people worked so hard for that freedom. I thought the story was portrayed really well and it was an easy read. It was very interesting and every page I wanted to keep reading. What made me choose this book from the rest was because in today's society America just voted for the President of The United States so it caught my eye. This book would be perfect to read to children around election time to show that the right to voting for women and African Americans was fought for for a long time. "The Day Gogo Went to Vote" is the perfect book to learn about the history of voting and read about it through a child's eyes.

[Ruby Khan · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘The Day Gogo Went to Vote’ is a book giving an insight into the introduction of the nonwhite majority being able to vote in South Africa. Sisulu has first-hand knowledge of the voting polls and wrote the book to try and capture the event for her family. This book is a great way for children to understand the injustice in regards to black rights in South Africa, and indeed the rest of the world.
However, if using it as a text in class, it is important to provide children with access to books where BAME characters are seen to be thriving in a ‘normal’ life setting, rather than being constantly portrayed as less advantaged.
What I really like about this book, apart from the shared liberation with Gogo and of course Sisulu herself, is the fact that it describes key terms such as ‘toyi-toyi’ at the start of the book. Not only this, but it describes how to pronounce the words. This allows everyone who reads it an ability to access the content of the book, regardless of their race or culture. In doing this, it only further emphasises the inclusion and acceptance that the nonwhite majority should have received during the Aparthied.

[Jennifer Endsley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought that this story was cute, inspirational, and a good read. Even though this book is about the right to vote and why voting is important, my favorite thing about the book is the relationship between the grandmother and the granddaughter. There are many children that can relate to this because they are either in the same position where the grandparent(s) watch them while their parents are gone, or their parents are not in the picture and are being raised by their grandparent(s). I also like how the book approaches the idea of voting and why it is important. I think how they talk about it and show it is easy for kids to understand, especially the part when the man that works at the voting station explains to the little girl how they keep track of those that already voted. I also like how the man explains to the little girl why she cannot go into the voting booth with her grandma. Overall, I think that this book will be entertaining and a great learning experience for children.

[Julie Suzanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh please read this with your kids on election day! It's a great example for your unit on "personal narratives" (in which students choose a significant personal event or person about which to write), and I love how the first page is a glossary and pronunciation guide for a few words in the narrative (and some of them involve a CLICK). It'd be fun to have a group of kids trying to pronounce them and then listening to an online translator...you'd definitely want to see where South Africa is on a map with the kiddos...these things make me want to be a librarian in an elementary school sometimes.

[Amelia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was about a young girl and her grandma, Gogo, and her grandmother voting. Gogo was old and had many experiences in her life, she also had many basic rights denied. Nelson Mandela was running for president in South Africa and Gogo was determined to do whatever she had in order to vote. The girl's family found someone with a vehicle and the family borrowed the car in order to drive Gogo to the voting location. After she voted Gogo felt proud and excited. This book is a great book to use in a civil rights unit.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is perfect to read while learning about African history. It takes place in South Africa and touches on topics such as people being denied their rights to vote. The illustrations are done in a beautiful watercolor and are not very colorful which fits the story well. I would recommend this for young children to start learning more about this history.

[Carlie Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genre: Fiction
Grade: Kindergarten- 3rd
Review: I really liked this book because this one hundred year old great-grandmother wanted to go vote for the first time in her life. Her great granddaughter wanted to go too. But no one wanted to take her so she had to beg. I felt happy when she got to get out of the house and vote despite the condition that she was in.

[Matthew Archibald · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a moving book about South Africa's first election in 1994, where a grandmother shows her granddaughter just how important it is to have the right to vote. We should all read it, and be inspired to utilize our right to vote here in the USA.

[Jordyn Tinder · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a picture book that explains voting through the eyes of a little girl. Gogo was the grandmother of Thembi, and thembi realized how certain rights got denied to her grandma. I loved when Gogo finally got to vote because she felt so proud and happy.

[Taylor Ingram]

This is a great book to use with older students to talk about voting and elections in other places and how important it is for people to vote.

[Melissa Hord]

This book is a window for students to show them how valuable voting is to people in different countries (even our own) and to teach them the history of voting in South Africa.

[Zoe Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has beautiful illustrations and has a great overall meaning. There’s beautiful family concepts in here about a young girl spending time with her grandmother.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the story of one family at the time of the historic 1994 South African elections. Told from the point of view of a six-year-old girl whose great-grandmother was going to vote for the firs time in her life in that election, this is a powerful reminder of how important it is to participate in civic actions such as elections. Well told and illustrated, this is a story that should be shared with children and adults, as its applicability is equal for both groups.

[Ciaran Mcnamee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story is set in South Africa in 1994 at the time of the first universal elections. It is narrated by Thembi, a young girl growing up in a South African township. Thembi tells the story of her elderly grandmother’s determination to exercise her newly acquired right to vote.

I thought this was a beautiful book that tells the complex story of the end of Apartheid in an accessible way. The story impresses upon the reader that the right to vote is not something that should be taken for granted. We learn that Gogo has waited her whole life in order to vote. By telling the story of the 1994 election through Thembi’s eyes the event is personalised for the reader. It also shows the reader the difference between having the right to vote and being able to vote. Thembi’s parents encourage Gogo not to travel to the polling station for fear that her health will suffer rather than because they oppose her voting. The day that Gogo votes is therefore a personal triumph for her as well as a significant day for South Africa.

I discovered this book when it was used as a teaching resource in a year 4 class in which I worked as a teaching assistant. I think that many of the children enjoyed the story although a few struggled with the concepts, so I would recommend it for readers aged 9 and 10. After reading the story my year 4 class conducted interviews with the characters. This allowed them to explore the feelings of the different characters in greater depth. They also wrote newspaper articles about the 1994 election. Therefore addition to introducing them to an important historical event the exercise allowed them to explore the difference between facts and opinions.

[Taryn]

The Day Gogo Went to Vote is a feel good, historical story about a woman and a great granddaughter. Gogo was determined to vote for the future president because she knew it would be her last time. She explained to her granddaughter how she did not have these rights in the past because of her skin color. The great granddaughter did not fully understand the political side of things for her grandmother but she supported her by being right by her side all the way up until the voting process. Gogo is an inspirational character that demonstrates activism and pride. Students who are unaware of the history of African Americans who lived through the change of society would be able to get a sense of historical facts within this story.
This story contains a political view point when it comes to the voting process. It is a powerful story that shows the remarkable strength and courage Gogo contains. Each page bleeds through giving readers a more meaningful viewpoint. The colors are rich in pastels and have bold lines outlining characters, background features, and other minor details. Students can gain a new perspective by reading this story about their families, history, and or determination in general. I would highly recommend this book to families globally to help children better understand this critically social issue of politics, skin color, and overall history.

[Delicia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genre: fiction; based on a true story; picture book; historical record
Topic: election in South Africa, voting
Theme: the responsibilities and privileges of voting
Illustrations: The illustrations are dark but colorful. They look like pastel sketches. They are not highly supportive of the text but they do illustrate key points of the text.
Reading level: fluent
Use: read aloud, guided reading, independent reading
Literary Elements: dialogue

Thoughts:

The Day Gogo Went to Vote is a story based on the 1994 South African elections. The story, told by the granddaughter, is about the grandmother, GoGo, who votes for the first time and the struggle she goes through to cast her vote. It is a powerful story about the desire Gogo has to vote.

It is a book for fluent readers. Some of the concepts are difficult. The book uses words from South African dialects repeatedly. The text is black text on dark colored backgrounds, and it jumps around on the pages. Many of the words are not high frequency words, and they are multi-syllable words.

[Courtney Dyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Day Gogo Went to Vote is a post-apartheid South African picture book that commemorates the day black South Africans were allowed to vote and the year Nelson Mandela is elected president. The book, told through a child’s-eye view, is about a young girl named Thembi who accompanies her great-grandmother to the polls to vote.

What an inspiring story! I feel it is most appropriate for children ages 7-10 and deals with themes such as black history, the loving relationship between a great-grandmother and her great-granddaughter, and civil rights. The smudged, pastel illustrations are a dreamy complement to the complex, wordy text. As a teacher, I would use this book in a cultural unit on South Africa to introduce students to South Africa’s history with apartheid and Nelson Mandela. As an extension activity, I would have students write about how they feel about the way black people were treated in South Africa or to write about how they would feel if they were a black child during apartheid in South Africa.

[Mathew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Born in Zimbabwe, now living in Cape Town, Sisulu's story is one of many in which she works at preserving the stories of her family and community for future generations. Having worked at a polling booth during South Africa's first democratic elections, Sisulu wanted to create a story for her sons which would celebrate and commemorate this event for her own children.
Told in first person by the six-year-old Thembi and her great-grandmother (Gogo for short) it tells of how Gogo wishes to escape the confines of her house in order to vote for the first time. We watch as the whole community comes together to support Gogo and the celebrations which ensue once she has.
The child's-eye view of an important historic moment in South African history is told well and Sisulu blends fact and fiction in a wonderful way without one element being lost to the other. Wilson's pastels bring life to the characters and life in Soweto. A wonderful little story which lets us not forget the tireless fight of many black South Africans.

[Abigail · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sisulu, E. B. (1996). The Day Gogo Went to Vote: South Africa, April 1994. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company Limited.

This book follows Gogo, a ninety-four-year-old lady, through the eyes of her six-year-old granddaughter during the momentous time period in which blacks in South Africa gained the right to vote. It was written by a Zimbabwean-born author who actually manned the election polls in South Africa during those historic elections. The art is very
unique, as it is smudged like chalk on a chalkboard or oil pastels on a canvas, but it is still very enjoyable to look at, and the figures are recognizable. As a teacher, I could use this book to delve into such diverse issues as race relations, events in the 1990s, world leaders, Africa and African issues, getting the right to vote, and world history. I would probably use this book as a starting point for the discussion of race relations elsewhere in the world once we had covered black repression in U.S. history.

[LesLee Sanders · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is set in South Africa and in 1994, Africans were allowed to vote for the first time. The grandmother in the story was the oldest in her town and although she never leaves the house she wanted to vote and was willing to risk her health to vote before she died. The town supported her and helped make her dream come true. The grandmother showed by example the importance of being a good citizen and making your voice count. The illustrations in the book were very dark, with warm tones, and the art looked a little too blurry for my liking. I couldn't clearly read the expressions on the characters' faces and I also couldn't tell very well who the story was referring to in the pictures.
This would be a great book to use during election time. Students would learn the importance of making their voice count. Because the pictures were so dark and hard to read, I would keep this book for upper elementary grades.

[J-Lynn Van Pelt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written by an author who was born in Zimbabwe and illustrated by a woman who grew up in Bermuda, this is a beautiful book about the first open elections in South Africa. Told from the point of view of a young girl, it chronicles her 100 year old great-grandmother's insistence that she go to vote in the 1994 elections.

This would be an excellent comparison book to a picture book about the African American voting rights movement of the 1960's. It is also a great glimpse at South African culture with a glossary in the front of the book that describes the African words. South African protest dances and food are mentioned and could provide excellent extension activities.

The pictures are created with pastels on sanded board. They capture the Soweto province in day to day life. The picture where Thembi sees herself in the newspaper is especially endearing.

[Claudia · Rating 4 out of 5]

(CIP) Thembi and her beloved great-grandmother, who has not left the house for many years, go together to vote on the momentous day when black South Africans are allowed to vote for the first time.

(Claudia) Six-year-old Thembi tells the story of how Gogo, her 100-year-old great-grandmother, voted in the first democratic post-apartheid election in South Africa. This moving and inspiring story, consistently told from Thembi’s perspective, shows both the warmly loving relationship between Thembi, Gogo, and other family members, and the importance and excitement of the election. Beautifully illustrated with richly colored pastels. Winner of the 1997 African Studies Children Book Award for Young Children (CABA). K-Gr 4.

Positively reviewed by SLJ and Africa Access.

[Krysta Jenkins]

This book is a creative rendition of Mandela's election in South Africa. It is told through the eyes of a child, and her inoccence shines through. Also, the illustrations enhance the text to give further clues to the environment and characters of the story. The text is both in the illustrations or on a separte page. There is no white space in the book. The places where the text is placed has colored backgrounds. The absense of boarders on the pages bring the reader into the story to make the reader feel like they are experiencing the things that Gogo is. Also, both double span page illustrations and single span illustrations are used. The diuble page illustrations are usually used for setting with many people or an outside setting.

[Taylour Connelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

*Thembi's beloved great grandmother, Gogo, is so old, she hasn't left the house in years. But when Thembi's parents announce that black South Africans will be allowed to vote for the very first time, Gogo announces she will travel to the polls, and that Thembi must come with her!
*Historical Fiction
*Lexile Measure: 780
*Companion Book: Getting Away with Murder: The True Story of the Emmett Till Case
*Both texts discuss determination in characters in achieving a goal. Gogo is determined to vote as it is the first time in South African history that Blacks can vote; it took years for a democratic society to be built. Mamie Till, after the murder of her son Emmett Till, traveled and was determined to tell his story across the country to help ignite the Civil Rights Movement.

[Taylor Nolan · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book has been printed in portrait orientation. The colors that are used throughout the book are very bright, with many variations of oranges and blues. The artwork within this book was made with pastels on sanded board. The images typically take up both sides of the page, with the text across the top or in a certain corner. The images are not bordered, I assume because this is a true story. The illustrations are done in a way that draws your eye closer to try to see the finer details. The pages are mainly bright oranges and blues, but the images themselves contain a lot of darker colors, like blacks, browns, and darker blues.

[Destiny]

The civic issue here is obviously about having the freedom to vote. This was the first time the people of africa coulD vote for their government and everybody put aside the differences in opinion to celebrate their freedom to vote.The pages were fukk bleed with lots of text on pages that had only colors and no images. The pictures seem to be illustrated with paint in a way that only the faces of peple are the detailed part of the pictures. The way the narrarater tells the story it seems as though these were real eventsand they may have been but i have no idea. Tje message i get from the story is as long as you get to vote the action outways the outcome.