Children’s book on Gandhi on the best-selling list

• Published date: 24 April 2024
• Author: Candice Soobramoney candice.soobramoney@inl.co.za
• Publication title: Post

However, the public rarely envisions him as a young man in a suit, shivering in the cold of a train station waiting room, unsure of his identity and confused about how to stand up to injustice

This is the Gandhi that co-authors Kathryn Pillay and Stephanie Michelle Ebert introduce in their first children’s book: How to Stop a Train, The Story of How Mohandas Gandhi Became The Mahatma.

The book, published by Pan Macmillan, was released in South Africa last month, and as an e-book internationally on April 12.

Pillay, a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, said that according to Nielsen Bookscan Data for week 13 of 2024, the book was among the Top 100 best-selling children's books in the country.

It also ranked number 63 of all South African titles (adults and children) that week.

“Our publisher informed us that it is quite difficult for a local children’s book to make it to the Top 100, so we were absolutely thrilled,” said Pillay, of uMhlanga.

Ebert, a writer and freelance digital communications specialist from Pietermaritzburg, said that when she read an email on how well the book was received, she screamed.

“I think Kathryn cried. It was just a humbling moment to know that we have been able to play a part in getting this story out into the world, and it is so encouraging to know that it’s resonating with people,” said Ebert.

She said it was their first co-authored book, but they had a long-standing working relationship.

“Kathryn supervised my Master’s thesis in 2014, and we collaborated on an academic journal article that was published in 2022. Given our history of successful collaboration, we were confident from the outset that we would work well together on this project.”

Pillay said they hoped Gandhi’s story would inspire young people to ask how their actions could make a difference in the world.

“The story revolves around the moment when Gandhi was thrown off a train in Pietermaritzburg because he refused to move out of the first-class compartment. He had purchased a first-class ticket, and did not want to co-operate with the racist ideas of the train conductors who wanted him to sit in the back because he wasn’t white.

“The title is significant because actually, Gandhi did not stop the whole train that day. They threw him off, and the train kept going. It seemed like his action of sticking to the truth in his soul had no effect on the larger world.

“But what Gandhi learnt in that moment and his decision to stick to the...