Prettyboy, Beware

by Barbara Kimenye

Matthew is nicknamed "Prettyboy," forced by circumstances to leave his shanty home to live with well-off family friends at the coast in Kenya. Life at the coastal town bustles with fast living, excitement, hopes, fears, danger, and illusions of the good life. But behind all this, tragedy lurks. The novel is one of a series developed to advance written and spoken English amongst lower secondary school students.

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Barbara Kimenye (19 December 1929 – 12 August 2012), was one of East Africa's most popular and best-selling children's authors. Her books sold more than a million copies, not just in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, but throughout English-speaking Africa. She wrote more than 50 titles and is best remembered for her Moses series, about a mischievous student at a boarding school for troublesome boys.

A prolific writer widely regarded as "the leading writer of Children's literature in Uganda", Barbara Kimenye was among the first Anglophone Ugandan women writers to be published in Central and East Africa. Her stories were extensively read in Uganda and beyond and were widely used in African schools. Kimenye was born in England, but by her own admission considered herself Ugandan

Reviews

[Nephamor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this book when I was in primary school and even as young as I was it was so sad to me and I've never forgotten it. Especially the end where he has some STIs is incredibly painful and it hurts that the reality back then has not changed even now. Child prostitution and paedophilia is still so rampant.