June is Caribbean American Heritage Month, a celebratory month to recognize the contributions of Caribbean Immigrants have made to the United States. From food to literature, Caribbean Americans have contributed so much to the vitality and history of the United States. As a Caribbean American (my mother is from Antigua), I’m very proud of my culture and I always take any opportunity to learn more about where I come from.
Take this wonderful opportunity to learn more about Caribbean culture through reading! Here are some great books to help you get started:
Windrush Child: The Tale of a Caribbean Child Who Faced a New Horizon by John Agard and illustrated by Sophie Bass
With one last hug, Windrush child says goodbye to his grandmother and the shores of his Caribbean home before embarking on an adventure across the ocean–under a sky full of promise–to an unknown horizon. With sensitivity and tender lyricism, world-renowned and multi-award-winning poet John Agard narrates the epic story of a child’s voyage to England aboard Empire Windrush. Joyous illustrations by debut artist Sophie Bass richly evoke the changing landscapes and the uncertainty, courage, and hope of those who step into history–and travel far in search of home. (Credit: Candlewick Press)
Our Story Starts in Africa by Patrice Lawrence and illustarted by Jeanetta Gonzales
When Paloma goes to visit her family in Trinidad, she doesn’t feel that she fits in. But Tante Janet has a story to tell her: An ancient story of warrior queens and talking drums, of treasures and tales that span thousands of years . . . a story that Paloma shares in, because her story, too, starts in Africa.Join Tante and her inquisitive niece as they share the story of how her family came to the Caribbean, through the dark days of colonization and enslavement, to the emergence of a thriving, contemporary community of many faces, places and successes.All too often, children’s books dealing with “Africa” are reductive with little mention or explanation of modern Africa and too much focus on traditional costume, dancing and animals. This book offers a new approach to caregivers wanting to talk about Black history and Blackness from its very origins, sensitively told and vibrantly illustrated. (Credit: Harry N. Abrams)
To Carnival!: A Celebration in Saint Lucia by Baptiste Paul and illustrated by Jana Glatt
The sights, sounds and tastes of vibrant Saint Lucia come to life in this cumulative tale of a girl’s journey to Carnival. When a series of unexpected delays disrupts her journey to the big parade, Melba must adjust both her expectations and her route to the festivities. Who will she meet and what will she learn along the way? B(
Love After Love by Ingrid Persaud
After Betty Ramdin’s husband dies, she invites a colleague, Mr. Chetan, to move in with her and her son, Solo. Over time, the three become a family, loving each other deeply and depending upon one another. Then, one fateful night, Solo overhears Betty confiding in Mr. Chetan and learns a secret that plunges him into torment.
Solo flees Trinidad for New York to carve out a lonely existence as an undocumented immigrant, and Mr. Chetan remains the singular thread holding mother and son together. But soon, Mr. Chetan’s own burdensome secret is revealed, with heartbreaking consequences. Love After Love interrogates love and family in all its myriad meanings and forms, asking how we might exchange an illusory love for one that is truly fulfilling. (Credit: One World)
These Ghosts are Family by Maisy Card
Stanford Solomon has a shocking, thirty-year-old secret. And it’s about to change the lives of everyone around him. Stanford Solomon is actually Abel Paisley, a man who faked his own death and stole the identity of his best friend.
And now, nearing the end of his life, Stanford is about to meet his firstborn daughter, Irene Paisley, a home health aide who has unwittingly shown up for her first day of work to tend to the father she thought was dead. (Credit: Simon & Schuster)
A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid
Lyrical, sardonic, and forthright, A Small Place magnifies our vision of one small place with Swiftian wit and precision. Jamaica Kincaid’s expansive essay candidly appraises the ten-by-twelve-mile island in the British West Indies where she grew up, and makes palpable the impact of European colonization and tourism. The book is a missive to the traveler, whether American or European, who wants to escape the banality and corruption of some large place. Kincaid, eloquent and resolute, reminds us that the Antiguan people, formerly British subjects, are unable to escape the same drawbacks of their own tiny realm—that behind the benevolent Caribbean scenery are human lives, always complex and often fraught with injustice. (Credit: Farrar, Straus and Giroux)t
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Wide Sargasso Sea, a masterpiece of modern fiction, was Jean Rhys’s return to the literary center stage. She had a startling early career and was known for her extraordinary prose and haunting women characters. With Wide Sargasso Sea, her last and best-selling novel, she ingeniously brings into light one of fiction’s most fascinating characters: the madwoman in the attic from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. This mesmerizing work introduces us to Antoinette Cosway, a sensual and protected young woman who is sold into marriage to the prideful Mr. Rochester. Rhys portrays Cosway amidst a society so driven by hatred, so skewed in its sexual relations, that it can literally drive a woman out of her mind. (Credit: W. W. Norton & Company)
Hurricane Child by Kacen Callender
Twelve-year-old Caroline is a Hurricane Child, born on Water Island during a storm. Coming into this world during a hurricane is unlucky, and Caroline has had her share of bad luck already. She’s hated by everyone in her small school, she can see things that no one else can see, and — worst of all — her mother left home one day and never came back. With no friends and days filled with heartache, Caroline is determined to find her mother. When a new student, Kalinda, arrives, Caroline’s luck begins to turn around. Kalinda, a solemn girl from Barbados with a special smile for everyone, seems to see the things Caroline sees, too. Joined by their common gift, Kalinda agrees to help Caroline look for her mother, starting with a mysterious lady dressed in black. Soon, they discover the healing power of a close friendship between girls. (Credit: Scholastic)
Witches Steeped in Gold by Ciannon Smart
Iraya has spent her life in a cell, but every day brings her closer to freedom—and vengeance.
Jazmyne is the Queen’s daughter, but unlike her sister before her, she has no intention of dying to strengthen her mother’s power.
Sworn enemies, these two witches enter a precarious alliance to take down a mutual threat. But power is intoxicating, revenge is a bloody pursuit, and nothing is certain—except the lengths they will go to win this game. (Credit: HarperTeen)
Kemosha of the Caribbean by Alex Wheatle
In 1668, fifteen-year-old Kemosha is sold by a slave owner to a tavern keeper in Port Royal, Jamaica–the “wickedest city on earth.” She soon flees from a brutal assault and finds herself in the company of a mysterious free Black man, Ravenhide, who teaches her the fine art of swordplay, introduces her to her soul mate, Isabella, and helps her win her freedom.
Ravenhide is a privateer for the notorious Captain Morgan aboard his infamous ship, the Satisfaction. At Ravenhide’s encouragement, Morgan invites Kemosha to join them on a pillaging voyage to Panama. As her swashbuckling legend grows, she realizes she has the chance to earn enough to buy the freedom of her loved ones–if she can escape with her life . . . (Credit: Black Sheep)
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
In Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado demolishes the borders between magical realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. In this provocative debut, startling narratives map the realities of women’s lives and the violence visited on their bodies.
A wife refuses her husband’s entreaties to remove the mysterious green ribbon from around her neck. A woman recounts her sexual encounters as a plague spreads across the earth. A salesclerk in a mall makes a horrifying discovery about the store’s prom dresses. One woman’s surgery-induced weight loss results in an unwanted house guest. (Credit: Graywolf Press)
Never Look Back by Lilliam Rivera
Eury comes to the Bronx as a girl haunted. Haunted by losing everything in Hurricane Maria–and by an evil spirit, Ato. She fully expects the tragedy that befell her and her family in Puerto Rico to catch up with her in New York. Yet, for a time, she can almost set this fear aside, because there’s this boy . . .
Pheus is a golden-voiced, bachata-singing charmer, ready to spend the summer on the beach with his friends, serenading his on-again, off-again flame. That changes when he meets Eury. All he wants is to put a smile on her face and fight off her demons. But some dangers are too powerful for even the strongest love, and as the world threatens to tear them apart, Eury and Pheus must fight for each other and their lives. (Credit: Bloomsbury YA)
Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings by Margarita Engle
Margarita is a girl from two worlds. Her heart lies in Cuba, her mother’s tropical island country, a place so lush with vibrant life that it seems like a fairy tale kingdom. But most of the time she lives in Los Angeles, lonely in the noisy city and dreaming of the summers when she can take a plane through the enchanted air to her beloved island. Words and images are her constant companions, friendly and comforting when the children at school are not.
Then a revolution breaks out in Cuba. Margarita fears for her far-away family. When the hostility between Cuba and the United States erupts at the Bay of Pigs Invasion, Margarita’s worlds collide in the worst way possible. How can the two countries she loves hate each other so much? And will she ever get to visit her beautiful island again? (Credit: Atheneum Books for Young Readers)
Girlcott by Florenx Webbe Maxwell
A week ago, Desma Johnson had only two things on her mind. In exactly eight days, she would be sixteen years old. And, to top it off, she was in line for a top scholarship, bringing her one step closer to her dreams. Life was perfect and nothing would get in the way of her birthday plans. But its 1959 and the secret Progressive League has just announced a boycott of all cinemas in Bermuda in order to end racial segregation.
As anxieties around the boycott build, Desma becomes increasingly aware of the racial tensions casting a dire shadow over the island. Neighbours she once thought were friendly and supportive begin to show another side. So, Desma must learn that change is never easy, and even when others expect small things from black girls, she has the right to dream big. (Credit: Central Books)
Halsey Street by Naima Coster
Penelope Grand has scrapped her failed career as an artist in Pittsburgh and moved back to Brooklyn to keep an eye on her ailing father. She’s accepted that her future won’t be what she’d dreamed, but now, as gentrification has completely reshaped her old neighborhood, even her past is unrecognizable. Old haunts have been razed, and wealthy white strangers have replaced every familiar face in Bed-Stuy. Even her mother, Mirella, has abandoned the family to reclaim her roots in the Dominican Republic. That took courage. It’s also unforgivable.
When Penelope moves into the attic apartment of the affluent Harpers, she thinks she’s found a semblance of family—and maybe even love. But her world is upended again when she receives a postcard from Mirella asking for reconciliation. As old wounds are reopened, and secrets revealed, a journey across an ocean of sacrifice and self-discovery begins. (Credit: Little A)
The Book of Lost Saints by Daniel José Older
Marisol vanished during the Cuban Revolution, her fate unknown and lost to time. Now, haunted by atrocities long-forgotten, her foul-mouthed spirit visits her nephew, Ramon, in modern-day New Jersey. Her hope: That her presence will prompt her descendant to unearth their painful family history.
Ramon launches a haphazard investigation into the story of his ancestor, unaware of the forces driving him on his search. Along the way, he falls in love, discovers a new sense of his own identity, faces a run-in with a murderous gangster, and learns of each “lost saint” who helped Marisol during her imprisonment under Batista’s reign. (Credit: Feiwel & Friends)
The Mermaid of Black Conch: A Love Story by Monique Roffey
April 1976: St Constance, a tiny Caribbean village on the island of Black Conch, at the start of the rainy season. A fisherman sings to himself in his pirogue, waiting for a catch—but attracts a sea-dweller he doesn’t expect.
Aycayia, a beautiful young woman cursed by jealous wives to live as a mermaid, has been swimming the Caribbean Sea for centuries. And she is entranced by this man David and his song.
But her fascination is her undoing. She hears his boat’s engine again and follows it, and finds herself at the mercy of American tourists, landed on the island for the annual fishing competition. After a fearsome battle, she is pulled out of the sea and strung up on the dock as a trophy. It is David who rescues her, and gently wins her trust – as slowly, painfully, she starts to transform into a woman again. But transformations are not always permanent, and jealousy, like love, can have the force of a hurricane, and last much longer. (Credit: Peepal Tree Press Ltd)
The Housing Lark by Sam Selvon
Set in London in the 1960’s, when the UK encouraged its Commonwealth citizens to emigrate as a result of the post-war labor shortage, The Housing Lark explores the Caribbean migrant experience in the Mother Country by following a group of friends as they attempt to buy a home together. Despite encountering a racist and predatory rental market, the friends scheme, often comically, to find a literal and figurative place of their own. Will these motley folks, male and female, Black and Indian, from Trinidad and Jamaica, dreamers, hustlers, and artists, be able to achieve this milestone of upward mobility? Unique and wonderful, comic and serious, cynical and tenderhearted, The Housing Lark poses the question of whether their lark, or quixotic idea of finding a home, can ever become a reality. Kittitian-British novelist and playwright Caryl Phillips contributes a foreword, while postcolonial literature scholar Dohra Ahmad provides a contextual introduction. (Credit: Penguin Classics)
The Dyzgraphxst by Canisia Lubrin
The Dyzgraphxst presents seven inquiries into selfhood through the perennial figure Jejune. Polyvocal in register, the book moves to mine meanings of kinship through the wide and intimate reach of language across geographies and generations. Against the contemporary backdrop of intensified capitalist fascism, toxic nationalism, and climate disaster, the figure Jejune asks, how have I come to make home out of unrecognizability. Marked by and through diasporic life, Jejune declares, I was not myself. I am not myself. My self resembles something having nothing to do with me. (Credit: McClelland & Stewart)
Augustown by Kei Miller
Ma Taffy may be blind but she sees everything. So when her great-nephew Kaia comes home from school in tears, what she senses sends a deep fear running through her. A teacher has cut off Kaia’s dreadlocks–a violation of the family’s Rastafari beliefs–and this single impulsive action will have ramifications that stretch throughout the entire community. Kaia’s story brings back memories from Ma Taffy’s youth, including the legend of the flying preacherman and his ties to the history of Jamaican oppression and resistance–all of which will reverberate forward to the present and change Augustown forever. (Credit: Vintage)
Caribbean Folk Tales: Stories from the Islands and the Windrush Generation by Wendy Shearer
Caribbean islands are rich in oral stories. Steeped in history where ancestors arrived as slaves, many stories are of West African origin. Carried to the islands with rhythm and song, stories were blended with European and East Indian folklore.Professional Storyteller Wendy Shearer has gathered together stories from many islands, with themes of magic and mystery, love and loss, tricksters and fools. Alongside the stories are reminiscences of migration from the Windrush generation – people who came from the Caribbean to Britain, shaping new stories to influence the old.Cric! Crac! Be enchanted by La Diablesse from Trinidad, outsmarted by the trickster Anansi, terrified by the shape-shifting Baccoo in Guyana and hunted by the Soucouyant from Dominica. Be inspired by the Jamaican story ‘Jon Do-Good’, which tells of the movement of people from Africa to the Caribbean; ‘do good, do good, whatever you do, do good’. (Credit: History Press)
All these titles and more can be found at my store on Bookshop.org
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