Project Paperclip: a reader’s impression of Bridget Krone’s youth novel, The Cedarville shop and the wheelbarrow swap

Shares0Facebook0 Tweet0 Pin0 Print0 Email0 LinkedIn0

...

It is such a beautiful and heart-warming story! Even though it doesn’t quite end as satisfyingly as I expected it to, the open ending is much more realistic and still manages to inspire and motivate the reader.

...

Title: The Cedarville shop and the wheelbarrow swap
Writer: Bridget Krone
Publisher: Catalyst Press
ISBN: 978-1-946-39566-5

This reader impression was written and sent to LitNet on the writer's own initiative.

Every person has a purpose and can make a difference in their community. Do you know what your purpose is? And are you brave enough to pursue it?

Bridget Krone’s youth novel, The Cedarville shop and the wheelbarrow swap (2022), takes place in a small and poor farming village in the Eastern Cape (South Africa), named after the Cedarberg mountain which borders the village.

There isn’t much going on in Cedarville. This is emphasised by the cover of the novel – a peaceful countryside scene illustrated with the mountain and the town in the background and three unknown children walking towards the village. As we start reading Krone’s novel, we realise that one of these three children is probably the main character, Boipelo Seku, through whose eyes the story is told. Apart from the book’s cover, it is through Boi’s point of view that the reader’s impression of the town is shaped even further:

… [H]ere in Khorong Koali Park … we have dust, weeds, thin dogs, and litter. (2-3)

The families in Khorong Koali Park live squeezed into small two-room houses that were built after we got our new government in 1994. … The walls are thin and cracked. … Some houses have about twelve people under one roof. (3)

The closest we ever get to meat is the bright pink, processed meat we call polony and something we call “walkie talkies” – chicken feet cooked in a spicy sauce …. But beef mince is never on the menu here. (8)

It is clear from Boi’s observations that there isn’t much happening in their community and that the people are really struggling to get by. The dogs are thin because there is no food for them to eat. People are forced to live in cramped spaces because they can’t afford to build their own houses, not to mention buying a pack of beef mince to eat!

Along with the theme of poverty evident in Boi’s descriptions above, Krone elaborates on this theme by putting our focus on the source of the poverty – unemployment. She uses Boi’s gaze to give the reader insight into the economic status of their community:

My father had a job with the Municipal Road Maintenance Project. He broke up chunks of gravel with a pick and cleared storm water drains with a spade. But it was just for that month. The job was rotated so that other people got a chance to earn some money. Most people were unemployed in this village. (16)

Like with the houses, there weren’t enough jobs for everyone, and people had to take turns to earn money. Then, whenever they had a job, it didn’t pay much to provide stability:

Dad used to have a steady job at the Kromdraai cheese factory, but that closed down many years ago. Since then, life has been very hard. Sometimes he gets work on farms helping to milk cows, make silage or harvest turnips, but it’s never anything permanent. We are lucky that my grandmother gets her pension from the Social Security office in Matatiele once a month and often, that is all we have to live on. (17)

Bridget Krone uses these opening scenes and themes to give gravitas to the main plot of the novel – Boi’s dream of a new house, which symbolises his dream of rescuing his family and himself out of poverty.

Boi is inspired by a story he reads in an outdated You magazine he finds underneath his grandmother’s bed, “Man trades paperclip for a house” (11). It is based on the real-life story of Canadian Kyle MacDonald, who started trading with a red paperclip and ended up with his own house. In the interview, which Boi reads out loud to his best friend, Potso, we learn why MacDonald started trading with a red paperclip:

“I couldn’t afford the down payment on a house,” said Kyle MacDonald. “I was feeling depressed and was staring at this red paperclip on my desk when I got my idea. I decided to advertise it on the internet and see if anyone would give me something in exchange for it. I was happy to trade for anything as long as it was for a higher value!” (12)

This story ignites Boi’s deepest desire, and Bridget Krone uses this desire to fuel Boi’s motivation and determination throughout the rest of the novel:

“I’m going to try it. I’m going to find something to trade and try and get something of a higher value. Then maybe someone will, you know, give me a new house too!” (14)

But Bridget Krone doesn’t make it easy for her main character, because as Boi’s best friend, Potso, points out:

“Things like this only happen to people who live in Canada. This. Is. Cedarville. People who live in Cedarville don’t get given houses for paperclips. You don’t even have a paperclip!” (14)

How can you start trading for something of higher value if you have nothing?

Krone also uses Boi’s reality and his description of poverty to emphasise people’s ignorance and the uneducated assumptions made by people who do not know how it feels to live in poverty. Readers will notice this in the scene where Boi is temporarily helping out in Mrs Viljoen’s shop and he overhears Aunty Shirley talking to Mrs Viljoen:

“You know what I think? The biggest problem in this place might not be unemployment. I think it’s laziness. People just need to get off their backsides and do something. It’s no good sitting around and waiting for the government.” (37)

But how do you start to “do something” if you have nothing to start with? How do you create stability for yourself and your family if all you make is used up or sometimes not even enough? Bridget Krone responds to this character’s ignorant comment through Boi’s father’s words:

“It happens. If you have money or influence. But mostly, things don’t work out. Most people’s lives are just like leaky buckets that never fill up. You’ll spend your whole life pouring in water that just drains away.” (42-43)

Sometimes, it isn’t as simple as “just getting off your backside and doing something”. Working hard and constantly applying for work will maybe keep someone and their family a float, but their overall circumstances won’t necessarily improve. Their buckets will always remain empty at the end of the day, because their circumstances were against them from the start.

The only way you can start filling up your bucket is, as Boi’s father points out, with money or influence. Even Boi with his idea and determination needs people to believe in his plan and give him a chance – like Boi’s best friend, Potso, who supports him from the start in helping him advertise “Project Paperclip”; Mrs Viljoen, who takes part in Boi’s first trade; Mr Tshezi, who helps Boi fix his wheelbarrow; and the journalist from the Kokstad Advertiser, who writes an article about Boi’s project.

...

This is definitely a novel I would recommend to anyone who wants to read something that embodies traditional South African words, phrases and sayings. It would certainly make an excellent gift for non-South African readers!

...

All these themes tie into what I think Krone’s main message of the novel (or one of them, at least) is: the impact one person can have on someone else or an entire community. We see this when Boi talks about how other people’s attitudes towards him or Project Paperclip have an effect on his confidence and feeling of self-worth:

“I was starting to notice something about myself when I spoke to people about this trading idea. If a person I was talking to thought that it was stupid, it felt stupid to me as well. … All the excitement fizzled out like a fire made of wet willow wood, all smoke and no flame. … But when a person loved the idea, the opposite happened. The small fire crackled into life ….” (116)

I love this extract because even though this is a youth novel, so many adults can associate with this feeling! Krone is depicting something which is universally experienced and so important!

Also, thinking back to Aunty Shirley’s ill-informed comment and how she was blaming people’s hardship on laziness, I realised that apart from a person’s actual struggles and hardships, the true problem is the effect these hardships have on a person’s psyche.

“I’ve decided that some people put out fires and leave the world cold and hopeless, and others nurse the kindling, blow like mad, and fan the flames with whatever they have at hand – so that everyone feels its warmth.” (116)

The circumstances a person has to live through can have a major impact on how they view the world and cause them to become depressed and unable to see any beauty around them. This is why “fire makers” are so valuable! People who kindle the flame can make you look differently at the world and help you see the beauty that is around you, instead of focusing on the things you don’t have. This by no means eliminates life’s hardships, but it can have a huge positive and rippling effect:

“You’ve done something, Boi. Something impossible … but wonderful.”

“No, I didn’t. I just made a mess. And then it all just kind of happened by accident. I didn’t know it was going to turn out like this.”

She just shook her head. “Something like this doesn’t happen by accident. Somebody has to make it happen.”

“Well, it wasn’t just me. There was Potso, Mrs Viljoen, Coach Nontso, Sis’ uDana, Mr Tshezi, Mr Retief, Musa Masela from the Sunday Times …” (164).

I love Bridget Krone’s novel because of characters like Mr Tshezi who are so creative and known for their ingenuity, but also because of the impact Boi and his dream have on the community. It is such a beautiful and heart-warming story! Even though it doesn’t quite end as satisfyingly as I expected it to, the open ending is much more realistic and still manages to inspire and motivate the reader.

Apart from this, I also enjoyed the iconic South African references found throughout the novel, for example, the mentioning of South African landscapes such as the well-known Drakensberg, the mentioning of the unique “click” sounds used when pronouncing words in Xhosa, and the use of South African words like amasi, pap, hambani, the Piet-my-vrou, enkosi, etc.

This is definitely a novel I would recommend to anyone who wants to read something that embodies traditional South African words, phrases and sayings. It would certainly make an excellent gift for non-South African readers!

Litnet