Shirley, Goodness & Mercy is a heart-warming, yet compellingly honest story about a young boy growing up in the coloured townships of Newclare, Coronationville and Riverlea during the apartheid era.

Despite Van Wyk’s later becoming involved in the struggle, this is not a book about racial politics. Instead, it is a delightful account of one boy’s special relationship with the relatives, friends and neighbours who made up his community, and of the important coping role laughter and humour played during the years he spent in bleak and dusty townships.

In Shirley, Goodness & Mercy Chris van Wyk – poet, novelist and short story writer – has created a truly remarkable work, at once both thought-provoking and vastly entertaining.

Funda indaba emangazayo yeqhawe langempela lesikhathi sethu uthole ukuthi umfanyana oncane owaqanjwa uyise ngokhuthi "unkathazo" wakhula kanjani ukuze alwe nabandlululo, waba ngumongameli wokuqala omnyama waseNingizimu Afrika wakhankasela inkululeko nobulungiswa emhlabeni wonke.

Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela is the amazing story of a true hero of our times; his famous biography has been specially adapted for children in a beautiful illustrated picture book format.

Discover how a little boy whose father called him "troublemaker" grew up to fight apartheid, become South Africa's first black president and campaign for freedom and justice throughout the world.

Adapted by poet Chris van Wyk and illustrated by South African artist Paddy Bouma, with an introduction from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Long Walk to Freedom introduces children to the life of one of the world's most beloved leaders.

Mr Hare meets Mr Mandela is one of the last stories Chris van Wyk wrote before he died and it originally appeared in Sunday Times Storytime: 10 South African Stories for Children. Mr Hare finds a R200 note on his doorstep. When he turns the note over he sees Mr Mandela’s face and decides to brave the big city of Johannesburg to return it to Mr Mandela. But Mr Hare cannot read and he comes across many people along the way who want to get their hands on Mr Mandela’s money. Mr Hare also cannot work out why the note keeps changing colour!

Agnes, the Van Wyks’ Zulu housekeeper, had a special friendship with young Chris in the late sixties to early seventies. He would defend her whenever she came to work with a hangover on a Monday morning and made a mess of the cleaning. In turn, Agnes never told on Chris when he played truant from school. As the years passed, the two grew closer, swopping stories about coloureds and Zulus, life in Riverlea and Soweto, pass laws, politics and falling in love. She taught him to count in Zulu and he promised to teach her to read in English. Whenever the clock ran against her, Agnes would stop almost in mid-sentence, grab a broom or cloth, and declare: ‘I have to rush. I have eggs to lay, chickens to hatch.’ What an odd, ungrammatical thing to say, Chris often mused. But many years later, he played a CD by Louis Jordan, a 1940s American jazz singer, and it all became clear. Eggs to lay, chickens to hatch (forthcoming end April 2010) is Chris van Wyk’s second childhood memoir about growing up in Riverlea and his colourful interactions with the men and women who lived the African proverb that ‘it takes a village to raise a child’. But mostly it is the story of a wonderful friendship between a young coloured boy and a Zulu.

Apartheid is responsible for hunger, homelessness and death. However, the worst crime of apartheid is that it made black people believe they were inferior to white people. Steve Biko was someone who never believed this lie. He showed black people that they had a culture and a history of which they should be proud. Biko's powerful ideas became known as Black Consciousness and spread throughout the country. Black people took notice - and stood up in their thousands to challenge the apartheid monster. Biko died in detention in 1977. His ideas, however, lived on. In this book, you will meet Steve Biko the young boy, the student, the activist and the proud father of Black Consciousness. They Fought for Freedom tells the life stories of southern African leaders who struggled for freedom and justice. In spite of the important roles they played in the history of southern Africa, most of these leaders have been largely ignored by the history books. The series tells their stories in an entertaining manner, in clear language and aims to restore them to their rightful place in history.

Chris van Wyk’s first (and only) book of poems, It Is Time to Go Home, was published in 1979 when he was just 22. He went on to become a well-known and much-loved writer of memoirs, biographies, and children’s stories. But he continued to write poems; some were published in literary magazines and some in his autobiographical book Shirley, Goodness & Mercy (2004).

This volume brings together a selection of these poems, along with a substantial selection from his first book.

Bill Jardine was born in Vrededorp (Fietas) in 1934. His mother, Rose Jardine, championed the causes of garment workers in the fifties and sixties, under the leadership of Solly Sachs who founded the Garment Workers Union. Bill Jardine grew up in Vrededorp and spent his childhood on his grandfather's farm as well as in the vibrant, cosmopolitan Vrededorp. What Sophiatown was to music Vrededorp was to sport. Many great coloured, African and Indian sportsmen and sports personalities had their roots in this vibrant township. Cricket, football, rugby and tennis were all played here. What this closely knit community was deprived of in facilities and amenities was made up for in enthusiasm and passion. Streets formed teams and tournaments were held into the night while cars' headlights provided floodlights and mothers and children looked on biting their nails to the quick. Christmas, Diwali, Eid, Guy Fawkes, New Years' Day, kept the people of this lively township in an endless stream of drinking, eating, dancing and dressing up. The Star bioscope provided entertainment with B grade Westerns and musicals. Apartheid broke up this community in the forties when Bill was fourteen, and the Jardine family moved across town to the coloured township of Noordgesig. He played rugby for Newtonians and when his peers retired he took up the cudgels to fight a bigger game, that of racism in sport. To this end Bill joined the South African Council of Sport (SACOS) in 1973. In the mid eighties Bill outgrew the rigidity of SACOS and helped form the National Sports Congress (the NSC). He was a key figure in unifying sport and getting South African athletes and sports men and women to compete in international arenas. Among Bill's friends and acquaintances are Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, Sam Ramsamy, Steve Tshwete, Makhenkesi Stofile, Amos Masondo, Mohamed Valli Moosa, Danny Jordaan and Ali Bacher.

Mr Hare Meets Mr Mandela is one of the last stories Chris van Wyk wrote before he died and it originally appeared in the Sunday Times Storytime: 10 South African Stories for Children. Mr Hare finds a R200 note on his doorstep. When he turns the note over he sees Mr Mandela’s face and decides to brave the big city of Johannesburg to return it to Mr Mandela.

But Mr Hare cannot read and he comes across many people along the way who want to get their hands on Mr Mandela’s money. Mr Hare also cannot work out why the note keeps changing colour!