Thursday, January 29, 2015

Forest Fever by Sharon James



link

This the newest book in the Sand Pebbles Pleasure Series published by Carlong Publishers(Caribbean) Ltd in Jamaica.

Forest Fever is an exciting story set in what is now Dominica’s Morne Trois Pitons National Park. Jerry, the narrator, goes on a school trip to the famous Boiling Lake and gets lost in the surrounding forest during a storm. Bruised and battered by the storm, he wakes up in strange surroundings, among strange people. Will he ever return to his normal life? He has to keep his eyes and ears open for a chance to escape from an increasingly dangerous situation.



Sharon James was born in Dominica to Antiguan parents. During her childhood and teenage years, her parents moved between Antigua and Dominica. Ms James attended primary and secondary schools in both countries. She now resides in Antigua, and has written other books for children. 
https://www.bookfusion.com/books/116178-forest-fever

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Multicultural Children's Book Day





Today is being celebrated as Multicultural Children's Book Day

Event - Celebrating Diversity in Children's Literature

Interesting statistics coming out of this article at http://www.fox19.com/story/27889779/multicultural-childrens-book-day-event-celebrating-diversity-in-childrens-literature

is in this statement : Despite census data that shows 37% of the US population consists of people of color, only 10% of children's books published have diversity content.

As I understand it, multicultural books apply to books which do not exclusively feature the characteristics, physical and otherwise, of the dominant part of the society. As more and more countries become increasingly global in their population mix it is important to have this multicultural vision for books especially for children.

In the first place, it helps to share the cultural differences, making them seem less strange and therefore more 'comfortable'.  And this cultural mix can be both internal to countries and external  - learning about other cultures.

Children learn so much, not always just from text books or those recommended by the schools as extra reading. Pleasure reading is a strong force in getting an understanding of how others live and think.

Coming from a country which produces children's literature that would be regarded as multicultural in the USA, it has often been disheartening to hear that the children there only like to read books related to the USA way of life, so by extension our books will not sell there as very few would be interested.

 Of course, there is quite an imbalance in that our children are inundated with books from the USA, in particular, and with media visions of life there. No wonder a recent survey stated that about half the Jamaican youth population would give up citizenship to migrate http://www.jamaicanews.net/index.php/sid/229359551.

 

I have no answers – Just saying. Hope the multicultural children's book day activities sensitize some folks to this issue.

 Links: to purchase Jamaican children's books

https://www.lmhpublishing.com/children


http://www.sangstersbooks.com/products/children-s-books/category/caribbean