Here's another excerpt from my new ebook Mr King's Daughter - A modern folktale
What a buzz of excitement filled the
village! People began to gather at Mr. King’s enormous iron gate from early on
the first Monday morning to see the young men who had got invitations to try to
make Simone laugh.
It promised to be the best fun for the
year, just like a reality show on cable. In no time at all, jerk pan, bag
juice, drinks, cigarettes and other aids to entertainment materialized on the
roadway leading to the King's gate.
The young men had to walk from the gate up
the long driveway, so that Mr. King could watch them and get an idea of what
they were like. Each was given half an hour to try to make Simone laugh.The
crowd surveying the suitors got their bellyful of laughter.
“A whe him a go! Look
how him head big and round like Mandora coconut."
“Coo dere! Jonkunnu a
come!”
“Ah like you
hairstyle, man. Dat alone mus mek Simone laugh.”
“Massi mi Massa. Is a
duppy dat?”
The men, with Mr. King’s fortune on their
minds, ignored these and other insulting remarks.
The crowd hissed and booed them when they
returned to the gate looking dejected, because they had not made Simone
laugh.'
ISBN: 978 976 638 069 4 Pages: 118 Age Group: 10 - 14 years Publisher: Carlong Publishers(Caribbean) Ltd
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Welcome to the world of the fantastic in this collection of ten unusual and exciting Caribbean folktales. Both children and adults will enjoy reading and re-telling these stories with their sometimes very strange characters and events. What would you do if you met so-so head or so-so hand or so-so foot on a lonely country road? How about the Tata Duende with his feet turned backwards? Or a fish which could give you what you wished for? You won’t be able to put down this book when you start reading.
-->These stories, traditional and modern, span the CARICOM family of nations: from Belize in Central America to Montserrat in the Eastern Caribbean. The introduction to the folktales by Prof. Maureen Warner-Lewis. is in itself a gem worth reading. She says:
"Magic is a key ingredient of the folktale all over the world, since it is through magic that the real world and the supernatural world can co-exist in the land of the living."
Expect magic as you read these stories. These folktales depart from the usual Anansi stories of African origin and show derivation from other geographic areas which have contributed to our history and culture. It is in the re-telling that these stories become our own. For example of Ti Jean and Mariquite-ATrue, True Trinidad Fairy Tale by Eintou Springer, Prof Warner-Lewis says:
"In Europe, many traditional stories end with marriage and with the
bride and groom living 'happily ever after'. This is the ending
in this story."
This story also follows the classical patterns of traditional story telling (the fairy tale) with three impossible tasks given to the hero by the king. In carnival country it is not a problem that the country has no king. In any case the king is also the devil. Ti Jean can carry out the tasks only with the magical help of the heroine, Mariquite. But how much more Caribbean can you get than this:
"Look! Mariquite say, and take out some food from her basket.
It was good food - cassava and dumpling with fish steam down
in coconut milk.Ti Jean eat and eat. Then he wash it down with
a drink of mauby."
Another interesting feature of this folktale is that the French - based patois spoken by some Trinis is interspersed throughout the story.( The accompanying audio CD lets you hear how this sounds)
Some of the stories are set in modern times - there are still ghosts in Guyana, and two are based in history -Caribs, Tainos and Spaniards. Much to enjoy here. Four of the stories are on the accompanying audio CDs
Authors
Cherrell Shelley-Robinson -Jamaica Eintou Pearl Springer -Trinidad and Tobago Jane Grell - Montserrat Jean F. Forbes -Jamaica Michelle M. Petty -Belize Mohamed Fazloor Yasin - Guyana Myrna Manzanares -Belize Nellie Payne -Grenada
Audio Disc #1
Tek Mi! Noh Tek Mi! Read by Myrna Manzanares (Belize) Lazy Manny-oh! Read by Leon South (Jamaica)
Audio Disc #2
Miss Angie Read by Godfrey Rock (Guyana) Ti Jean and Mariquite read by Eintou Pearl Springer (Trinidad and Tobago)
Easy readers (easy-to-read) books are for children just starting to read on their own (ages 6-8). They have many
illustrations in colour, but the format is often a smaller book size than the ‘baby’ books.
Transition books - sometimes called "early chapter books" for ages 6-9. These are longer, about 30 pages, and broken into 2-3 page chapters. Books are smaller and now have black-and-white illustrations not necessarily on every page.
Chapter books for ages 7-10. Stories usually contain a lot of action. Readers love adventure stories.
Middle gradebooks (novels)This is the golden age of reading for many children, ages 8-12. Stories are longer and have more complex plots and sub-plots involving several characters. Readers love series books where they can follow the adventures of favourite characters, e.g. the perennially popular Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books. Illustrations in fiction books are now few and far between and are black and white.
Young adult books These are for ages 12 – 16. Books can go up to 200 pages, plots can be complex with several major characters, though one character should emerge as the focus of the book. Themes should be relevant to the problems and struggles of today's teenagers.
The age divisions overlap and are merely guidelines as many children will be comfortable reading either behind or ahead of their age group. The important thing is for parents or adults buying books for children to be aware of the child’s interests and reading level. Often adults will buy books which appeal to them (from their memories of their own childhood) or books which they think the child should read, and then they wonder why the child is not excited about the book they have bought. Children get enough of the books they should read in school, buy a book which will be pure fun for the child to read– fiction or non-fiction.
In the Caribbean you will find publishers more willing to publish books for the age ranges mentioned above, especially for the middle grade readers. Although stories are longer, the absence of colour illustrations, except perhaps for the cover, makes it cheaper to produce. There will be more sales - to libraries and if the books get recommended for supplementary readers in schools.
There is a general feeling that fiction both for adults and children doesn’t sell well in the Caribbean. Some days ago, I was watching a television interview with a local publisher who said, emphatically, that fiction doesn’t sell in the Caribbean in any numbers to make it viable for a publisher to invest in same. Later, Collin Channer of Calabash fame was on the program disputing this. His point was that the problem was in the lack of adequate marketing and promotion for the books. When last, he asked, have you seen a Caribbean book title (fiction) advertised on television, heard it on radio, seen it on a poster or in the print media? Food for thought.
A mini launch supported by a few committed souls, a newspaper review (if you are lucky) – that’s usually it for promotions, so the general public remains largely unaware of the book. Also, in Jamaica, at least, we seem to have developed a culture that the children should get books. Publishers know they are taking a risk putting out fiction for children. More on this another time.
