Jasmine helps her mother prepare to sell fish and sugar cakes at their parlour, or market stand, on market day on the island of Trinidad.
Picture Book
The First Music
When the animals all get together in the jungle, they discover that the noise that they have been making is indeed music. Dylan Pritchett weaves a tale that helps us discover that we all have music inside just waiting to come out.
Mama’s Saris
When a young girl eyes her mother’s suitcase full of silk, cotton and embroidered saris, she decides that she, too, should wear one, even though she is too young for such clothing. When the mother finally realizes how important it is for her little girl to feel like a big girl on her seventh birthday, she dresses up her daughter in the folds of a blue sari. The daughter is thrilled to look just like her mother, even if only for a day.
The Golden City: Jerusalem’s 3,000 Years
This history of Jerusalem from King David’s time to the present day introduces religions and cultures that have formed Jerusalem’s heritage.
The Scarves
What can you do when the people you love don’t think they love each other anymore? When one little girl learns that her grandparents are separating, it’s hard for her to understand. Grandpa explains that Grandma steals his chocolate pudding, and her favorite color is blue. Grandma says that Grandpa watches too much TV, and his favorite color is red. But when the little girl realizes they really do still love each other, she devises a plan she hopes will bring them back together. Perhaps blending two lives together can be just like knitting two colors together to make a beautiful scarf.
Grandfather’s Journey
A Japanese American man recounts his grandfather’s journey to America which he later also undertakes, and the feelings of being torn by a love for two different countries.
See the review at WOW Review, Volume VII, Issue 4
Where Jamaica Go?
Jamaica has fun and sees many colorful sights as she goes downtown, goes to the beach, and rides home with Daddy.
Rata-Pata-Scata-Fata: A Caribbean Story
This is the story of Junjun, a little boy who wants to help his mother, but who doesn’t really want to exert any effort in the process. Instead, he invokes the nonsense phrase, “rata-pata-scata-fata” to accomplish several tasks she sets before him: getting a fish for dinner, finding a lost goat, and collecting a bucket of tamarinds. Lastly, she asks him to fill the rain barrel. Junjun lies on the ground, repeats the words several times, and the chores are completed. Of course, no magic is really involved, only coincidence-or is it?
Waking Beauty
Everyone knows Sleeping Beauty has to be woken with a kiss, except Prince Charming. Every time the fairies watching over her try to tell him, he interrupts with his ideas of how to wake her. Eventually he gets the message, and his reaction is priceless: “One hundred years of morning breath Wow! That could be the kiss of death!” This fractured fairy tale will elicit laughter that no one will be able to sleep through.
Sarah’s Little Ghosts
When Sarah breaks her mother’s favorite necklace, she lies to cover it up. But the lie isn’t the only thing that comes out of her mouth. A little ghost pops out, too! And for every new lie Sarah tells, another ghost appears. There seems to be only one way to get rid of them, but which is scarier: living in your own haunted house, or telling the truth?