Changes

|title=Whitethorn

|author=Bryce Courtenay

|date=November 2006

|isbn=0718150422

}}

Tom Fitzsaxby is a young orphan at a boys farm in rural South Africa. It is 1939, and South Africa has weighed in on the side of the Allies against Nazi Germany. For its Afrikaaner community, this is not a popular move. It brings to the fore the old wounds of the Boer War and its murder-by-concentration-camp. High in the mountains hatred for the British runs high, and Tom, as the only child at the Boys Farm with an English name, becomes a target for bullying and abuse - not only by the other boys, but also by the staff. His miserable existence is made bearable by his only friend Mattress, a Zulu farm boy and his dog, a rescued fox terrier named Tinker. And even these two are under threat...