Stepping Solo

by Jayne Bauling

"The lilies seem to flower earlier each year, which frightens me. It's as if time is contracting and going to run out before I've had a chance to achieve all the things I need to. Before I've had a chance to be a real person."
Ketso worries all the time: about passing Grade 11, about being head of his family, about his friends and their sugar daddies ...

Genres: Young Adult

122 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2011

About the author

Jayne was born in England but grew up in South Africa. After many years in Johannesburg and 17 women's fiction novels published in the UK, a move to White River, Mbombela in Mpumalanga, coincided with an exploration of new writing directions - youth fiction, short stories and poetry. Her YA novel E Eights won the 2009 Macmillan Writer's Prize for Africa, Stepping Solo was awarded the 2011 Maskew Miller Longman literature award for novels in English, and Dreaming of Light won the 2012 Gold Sanlam Prize for Youth Literature and was chosen for the 2014 IBBY Honour List. Her youth short story Dineo 658 MP won the 2009 MML silver medal, while This Ubuntu Thing was shortlisted for the inaugural Golden Baobab award and The Saturday Dress was shortlisted for the same award in 2014. In 2011 she also won the inaugural African Writing flash fiction prize for Settling. She has twice been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Another youth novel Our Side of the Wall was shortlisted for the Sanlam Prize. Her adult short stories have appeared in The Bed Book of Short Stories (Modjaji Books), The Edge of Things (Dye Hard Press), African Pens 2011 (Jacana), Feast, Famine & Potluck (Short Story Day Africa), the e-anthology Behind the Shadows, and (the stories An Inappropriate Woman and Witch and Bitch)in the People Opposing Women Abuse Breaking the Silence annual anthologies (Jacana). Rage and Misfortune, her retelling of the OT Samson story was published online by Ludic Press. Poetry: Symbiosis won SAFM's Express Yourself prize, Fist was placed 3rd in the 2008 POWA Women's Writing Project and published in Murmurs of the Girl in Me, while Unschooled was published in POWA's 2010 anthology Stories of the Othere(ed) Woman and The Ladies Take Tea in POWA's 2012 anthology Sisterhood. More poetry in ouroboros review, Markings, poetandgeek, Ons Klyntji, Litnet and the Lowvelder.
Her latest novel is Soccer Secrets (Cover2Cover Books).
Visit her Facebook page Jayne Bauling Writer or follow her on Twitter @JayneBauling

Reviews

[Judy Croome · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read very few youth novels, but bought STEPPING SOLO as background for an interview with the author. As this story won the Maskew Miller Longman 2011 award for youth novels, I expected an unrelentingly dark and serious novel.

STEPPING SOLO is gritty and realistic. As we share four days in the life of 18-year-old Ketso Chilwane, we gain a depressing snapshot of the problems facing the youth of South Africa: AIDS, poverty, child abuse, violence and the lure of alcohol and drugs.

If that sounds grim, it is…and yet STEPPING SOLO is essentially a story of hope. Bauling's refusal to skim over the bleakness of the future facing many young people is tempered by the encouraging example of teenagers who, despite seemingly overwhelming problems, grow in confidence and courage with which they can, perhaps, build a better life for themselves.

Very well-written, for the story remains firmly in young Ketso's voice, the text also contains an excellent section at the end which enhances the reading experience for young readers by means of questions, summaries and a glossary.

[Jude · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nicely drawn characters. Thoughtful exploration of contemporary issues. This would be a useful book to use in the classroom.

[Elaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5