In My Name is Marcus, Philp, a longtime Garvey scholar has written a factual account of Garvey’s life that is powerful as it is unsentimental. Boldly illustrated by a talented creative team (Shaquille Cross, Marcel Hemmings, Richard Kentish, Djet Layne, Mikel Miller, Davia Morris, and Michael Robinson), My Name is Marcus is a first-person narrative of Garvey’s childhood into adulthood…
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YA Review-Frying Plantain by Zalika Reid-Benta
I have to thank Ann Marie Harvey, Librarian at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, for bringing this book to the top of my reading list on which it has been languishing since it was first published last year. Ann Marie invited me to a virtual book club meeting which I would not have been able to attend if it had been held…
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YA Review-American Street
Sixteen-year-old Fabiola and her mother are separated at US Immigration when they enter the US traveling from Haiti to Detroit. Fabiola is an American citizen and her mother has a valid visa, however, Immigration agents refuse her mother entry and Fabiola, who has not been to the US since leaving as an infant, must travel from New Jersey to Detroit…
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YA Review-Rise from Dirt
In this, the third book in the science-fiction YA Dirt and Stars series, we find the continued adventures of Mara, Jael, and Beth along with a new and increasingly diverse cast of young people. Mara is a “spacer” born on a man-made space station, who came down to Earth in a previous book prepared to endure six weeks of exile on…
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Review-Stir It Up!
Thirteen-year-old Anjali is first-generation American. Her parents are from Trinidad and they live in the Indo-Caribbean neighborhood of Richmond Hill where her father owns a roti shop. Anjali’s grandmother also works and Anjali helps after school. Anjali has a strong passion for cooking and a dream to take part in a national kids’ cooking show.
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Review-Gone To Drift
Gone to Drift is the story of one boy’s unrelenting quest to find his grandfather, Maas Conrad, who has gone to drift in the waters off Jamaica. Lloyd has an unwavering faith in Maas Conrad’s strength of body and will and goes to tremendous lengths to locate his missing grandparent despite the insistence of adults that he give up the…
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Review – With Grace
Written in Hillhouse’s strong poetic voice, With Grace spins a magic-laden story of the universal battle between good and evil. But it is far from ordinary. An involved tale, With Grace takes the reader on a series of twists and turns as Hillhouse explores the limits of human capacity for tolerance and meanness. Hillhouse skilfully evokes her Caribbean setting and the illustrations,…
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YA Review -Dreams Beyond the Shore
In Dreams Beyond the Shore we find seventeen year old Chelsea at a crossroads in her life, left to decide whether to be the dutiful daughter her politician father expects her to be or to follow her own dreams to be a writer. Dreams Beyond the Shore is the winner of the 2016 Burt Award for Caribbean Literature
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YA Review – Down to Dirt (Dirt and Stars Book 1)
Recommended read. Mara was born and raised on Tombaugh, a space station inhabited only by the brightest and best humans and where these humans live uncontaminated by earth’s gravity, sun, and polluted atmosphere. So she’s very unhappy when her parents force her to spend time with her aunt, uncle, and cousin on Earth, or ‘Dirt,’ as it’s called on Tombaugh.
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Barberry Hill – Review
No, I’m not reviewing my own book. I just received the Kirkus review of Barberry Hill and was quite pleased with the reviewer’s thoughtful comments. I glowed on reading “She skillfully captures Jaden’s grief, anxiety, feelings of abandonment, fear, and other stormy emotions, as well as the rhythms of friendship and dialogue among teenage boys…. “Fresh, well-described setting and vibrant…