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A 2024 IBBY Honour List Selection
A CBC Spring 2024 Showcase Selection
In the final years of South Africa’s Apartheid era, an unlikely trio—a sheltered white rugby player, a black farmworker’s son, and an Indian shopkeeper’s daughter—discover the consequences of knowing the truth and having the courage to speak it. Halley’s Comet is the coming-of-age story of Pete de Lange, a white 16-year-old schoolboy, set in small-town South Africa in 1986. Pete lives a relatively sheltered life, primarily concerned with girls and rugby— until one January night changes everything. Thrust together with two complete strangers—Petrus, a black farmworker’s son and Sarita, an Indian shopkeeper’s daughter—the trio find themselves running for their lives from the vicious Rudie, whose actions will ripple far beyond that fateful night. This era-defying friendship—sparked by a shared secret— challenges everything Pete thought he knew and believed. And when anti-Apartheid revolutionaries set their sights on the town, it will change the course of the three young people’s lives forever. Halley’s Comet is a story of friendship, love, change, taking chances, hope, a comet, and some pretty cool 80s music.
“Halley’s Comet is an outstanding coming-of-age novel with believable characters and strong storyline. The author describes that era of the South African history with particular skill. This book cuts deep, very deep. The end is momentous, but it takes the reader to dark and troubled times before offering an end that is likely to leave even the toughest reader in tears.” —DEKAT Magazine (South Africa)