Jamela's Dress Quotes

This wonderful story set in South Africa tells how Jamela gets carried away by the gorgeous material her mother buys to make a dress to wear at Thelma’ s wedding. Wrapping it around herself, she shows it off to all her friends. How beautiful it is and how beautiful she is in it. But parading the material around in front of her friends gets it damaged and Jamela feels terrible when she realises what she’ s done.

Jamela’s dress is an adorable story that follows an African girl as she wears her mother’s expensive fabric and parades throughout the town. The artwork is fairly realistic and lends a style to the book that flows from page to page.

The illustrations are vibrant and Jamela’s Dress is a lovely story of a young African girl who loves dressing in her mother’s expensive fabrics, she takes it to parade around town but when the fabric is ruined, Jamela has to face the consequences.

“It’s beautiful, Mama” said Jamela, stroking the crisp new material. “Yes, it’s beautiful. It costs a lot of money -- but I need something special to wear for Thelma’s wedding”, said Mama.

And Mama was. Mama was so upset that she couldn’t even look at Jamela. She just looked at the dirty, torn material and said sadly. “What am I going to wear for the wedding?” Everyone felt sorry for Mama and cross with Jamela. Even Jamela was cross with Jamela. She hadn’t meant to ruin Mom’s material. It just happened.

Jamela (who must be about the age of five) set herself to the task of watching her mother’s fabric for her new party dress. Buuuuut... well... she got a little carried away taking it to show everybody. And the fabric is ruined. There’s a bit of a contrived happy ending, though I guess children mightn’t realize it.

Mama is very pleased with the dress material she has bought for Thelma’s wedding. Jamela can’t resist wrapping the material around her and dancing down the road, proud as a peacock, to show Thelma her beautiful dress! When things go wrong, Mama is very sad indeed, but there’s a happy ending just in time for Thelma’s wedding day

Dreamily, Jamela swayed between the folds of material as they flapped and wrapped around her into a dress. When Mama heard nothing going on, she called “Are you looking after my material, Jamela?” There was no answer.

The incorporation of background images and settings tells the reader that this book is indeed taking place in a foreign country, and there are words from the African language translated in portions of the book. Despite the obvious African setting, this is a universal story that could take place in any country to any little girl. The colors in this book are stunning, and the story heartwarming.

Jamela’s Dress is a heart-warming post-apartheid South African picture book about a little girl who just can’t resist her mama’s new, expensive dress fabric. Instead of looking after it while it hung to dry, Jamela wrapped herself up in the beautiful fabric and paraded down the street, causing it to get dirty and torn. Everyone is upset with Jamela, including Jamela herself, until Archie, a local photographer, saves the day just in time for Thelma’s wedding.