Two more new YA books from the Burt Award for Caribbean Literature

 

Lynn Joseph's Dancing in the Rain,  third place winner Burt Award for Caribbean Literature, 2015: another book answering the question why write? Or the power of stories

My last post was about books that bear evidence to the power of stories. Dancing in the Rain is one such  book.

Offline for three days, one felt  lost in space without  the ritual of opening emails.  I decided therefore that  I could use the time to consider at least one philosophical question. Would there be an answer if one opened one's mind? I needed to make sense of things. And the world was not making sense.  No doubt, there are others who  feel the same from time to time, and especially in today’s world.

In stepped Dancing in the Rain. I was pulled into the story by the lyrical writing. It's a joy to read; images abound, almost like being able to watch the  frames of a movie gently gliding by.  Joseph's characters are delightfully drawn;  you do indeed get to know them, want to know not only the outcome of the story, but the outcome of each of their own personal stories. The colours of the Caribbean  depicted (it's set in the Dominican Republic) are vibrant and magical.    

Against this mystical, magical background, two horrendous occurrences make their appearance,  the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York on 9/11, and the Holocaust. The main characters are suffering from the effects of  9/11.  It’s significant that a book for young adults should deal with a traumatic occurrence which falls within present memory. It is contemporary; it is topical in a world where so many things seem out of our control, so beyond our wildest imaginations, and not in a pleasant way. The Holocaust appears as  a story within the  story, its purpose to draw attention to the different ways people survive after a tragedy of immense  proportions. So, in a sense, it informs the present.

The young protagonists ask philosophical questions and seek answers to the things we adults ourselves often do not understand. Yet,  it seemed as if by interacting with the characters and their story, and the  really brilliant protagonists, we understand what we always knew, but sometimes forget, that the only one way to deal with disasters is with faith/ hope and courage;  Joseph more than once refers to the importance of hope.

Joseph also speaks about joy and love, 'you are my heart', 'you are my joy', both of which I firmly believe in, and which from time to time appear in my stories.

So  did I have a breakthrough as a result  of my  journey with Joseph's characters, their philosophy, their brand of magic? Well something happened. It occurred while reading Dancing in the Rain. I have never doubted the power of stories, the power of books.  I gave thanks for the power of this story.

 

 

Children of the Spider by Imam Baksh, first place winner Burt Award for Caribbean Literature, 2015

 This is a rollicking adventure story set in Guyana. It’s really well written,  it keeps you on the edge of your seat, bed, wherever you read. Quoting from the blurb: Maya is a girl on the run. Driven by desperation and the search for her father  . . . she meets Joseph, a boy without the gift of speech but with much to say. Intriguing, right? The blurb also tells us . . . the story moves from the lush hinterlands of Guyana through the bustling city of Georgetown . . .It is a refreshing take on Caribbean myth and mythology from an interesting new voice.

So I was cheering for both Maya and Joseph. I enjoyed the trip from the interior to the coast, the river boat, the chase by the villains,  some of this world and some not, through markets and canals and along the roads of Georgetown.  The character of  Anancy, when it appears, is different, without losing the anancy characteristic, and is in fact  quite delightful.  I enjoyed the very clever mix of the present time along with this  old folktale character,  and what seemed to be another new created myth. And what do we know? Maybe the new isn’t new at all.

This is a great read!

This is a book to be in schools right now, at secondary, or even upper primary. Our Caribbean children will love this. For my part, it will show them we can also have adventure stories just like anything coming out of the developed world, and better, in fact.

Here we are with three new books, all Burt winners, Children of the Spider, Dancing in the Rain (both Blouse and Skirt Books - I salute Tanya Batson-Savage and her Blouse and Skirt Books for publishing these books); and Gone to Drift, (Papillote Press, review in my post of Saturday, June, 11). All are different, all contemporary, all great reads;  which should be in schools, which could hook our children onto reading. I believe the print run for the Burt Awards might in fact allow for many schools across the Caribbean to access these books. Will the powers that be put them on their master list which controls all reading? I do hope so, because they are enchanting,  they are enticing, they are exciting, and because it’s time to have some contemporary Caribbean stories in schools.

I feel really pleased that the Burt Awards are turning out to be so fantastic, helping us to develop  a library of outstanding  young adult books.

 

 

In praise of "Gone to Drift" by Diana McCaulay:

 

Prize Winner Burt Award for Caribbean  Literature, 2015:  Papillote  Press, 2016

This is a beautiful book. If it were a painting it would be in tones of grey and shades of blue for the sea, and for the land,  tones of beige and green, with splashes of colour added by the people who travel across its landscape. And I would buy it instantly for fear of losing it.

This may seem like a strange way to begin a book review, and maybe this is not really an actual book review; maybe it’s more like in praise of good writing, a good story, and the environment. This last may seem too obvious to mention because we know that the author is a well known environmentalist. However, this book is not just an opportunity to recognize the importance of the environment; it is a hymn to it. You cannot read this story and come away unmoved by the significance of our environment and its importance to the characters in the story, and  to the island.

The setting is the environment; more specifically the sea. The characters and  the sea are entwined in a dance, an embrace, which we  soon understand, can at any given time act  in favour of the human characters, or not.  It is this overarching character,  the sea, unmoved one way or the other by all that is happening,  and bearing  no animosity to anyone, that  forms the backdrop to this story.  This sea can bring you a bounty, yet you can get lost in it, gone to drift.

Of the two main human characters, one is Lloyd, a young boy, who is worried about his grandfather, who has not returned from a fishing trip, in what  Llloyd perceives as good time. None of the other characters, mainly fisher families, Lloyd’s family, those who interact with them along the various coastal areas, seem to be very worried. You are left to wonder if, as they suggest, that perhaps there is nothing wrong;  Lloyd is unduly anxious. On the other hand, you wonder if it is that they do not wish to make Llloyd feel any more worried than he is. You fear that they know something that he does not, that they are not telling him the whole truth.

The other character is Gramps, Lloyd’s grandfather, whose voice Lloyd can hear  in his head, “I come from a line of fishermen.”  This is as powerful as if the statement were, “I come from a  line of kings.” We believe this, a line of greatness.

 Gramps  also tells his story.  And so we have the two stories, Llloyd looking for his grandfather, using any means necessary, his good friend, Dwight, the Coastguard, Jules, the lady who cares about the dolphins, his mother, his ne’re-do-well father, his grandfather’s friends; and Gramps’  story of his own father, his many brothers, all fishermen, and his mother. We come to care about Gramps’ family, as well as for Lloyd, whose determination and bravery in his search for Gramps often astounds us.

It eventually dawns on us that Gramps is not on any of the main cays off the coast of the island,  but is stranded on what seems to be  a mere rock in the sea. The tension is created  not only by Lloyd’s search for his grandfather, the question of how  dolphins fit into this scenario, and whether his grandfather can be found in time, but also by seeing the  old man himself wondering how long he can survive on little crabs and rain water, the latter coming  sporadically. 

The author uses the device of alternate chapters for each of these two human characters, so that we can measure Lloyd’s attempts against the will of his grandfather to survive. It works; we are not distracted; rather, we  are caught up in the emotion of the situation.

The language is measured, like a tale told on dark nights by lantern light, increasing  the feeling of  being at the mercy of the elements.  Descriptions are rich, as  seen in Gramps recollection of a sunrise.

Then I realised that  I could see my hands and feet as a grey light stole across the sea. And to the east I saw the sky turning into a hundred different colours from the blue of a summer day to the dark purple of the thickest squall, from the pale pink of the inside of a conch shell to the bright orange of a ripe mango, until the round ball of the sun itself came up and the colours of the  sky spread over the water and even warmed our faces. I knew then that the best place to see a sunrise was at  sea.

It is for this reason alone that you cannot hurry through this book. Even as the mystery deepens, you need to stop to see what the characters see, to feel what they feel.

 Then, suddenly you may be caught unawares, by an intervention into this beauty, alerting you to  danger, which may be lurking, as in Gramps’ description of his brothers going to sea:

It was late when they left and I thought the night was darker than usual.  We stood on the beach and watched them go. The boats made a ragged triangle formation, like a flock of birds, and for a few seconds their wakes were visible. Then they pierced the night and disappeared.

And you understand  in the sameness of their going to sea, the routines of their lives, the power of  nature, of the dark, of the night, of the sea.

The dialogue, which is a mixture of standard Jamaican English, and what I like to call a modified Creole, is well handled. It effectively represents  the mother tongue of our people, but does not become so deep as to make it difficult to read, or for the book  to travel to other countries. From Lloyd to his grandfather, to Jules the uptown girl, their voices ring true.  And this use of language, this love and respect for the sea, for the creatures of the sea, bridges what could be social differences and makes us one.

Consequently, just as you come to respect the environment,  you come to respect the people who depend on the sea, and their way of life. The author does not allow you to feel any  pity for the difficulty of their lives.  This is a great skill, to describe another life with empathy. You may even begin to think that like Lloyd and his grandfather,  these people are the salt of the earth, or the sea, their nobility in facing the dangers of the sea  surpassing those who make a safe living from the land. And then the author brings you back to reality. These people are no better or worse than people anywhere. They have their nobility, they have their heroes and their villains, and their awful betrayals.

This coming of age story of a boy called Lloyd, who loves his grandfather,  will leave many wondering about the meaning of it all, and yet Llloyd must make sense of it.

This book should be read in all schools. To say that a book should be read in schools, makes it sound like a textbook, or the over-worked literature set-books. However, I would want all our young people to read it, to discuss it, and that seems to be the only way to get it to them. This is a beautiful book.

 

On being shortlisted for a major award and other revelations

 

How does it feel to be shortlisted for the inaugural Burt Award for Young Adult (YA) Literature for Island Princess in Brooklyn? It feels sort of wonderful! Even though we know that  Island Princess in Brooklyn will go no further than the shortlist, (because those to read at Bocas have appeared on their programme posted on their website), I still feel sort of wonderful. It is an honour to be shortlisted and the others with me are talented writers.  For those who do not know, the Burt Award for the Caribbean has been established by CODE, a Canadian charitable organization involved in advancing literacy and learning for 55 years, in collaboration with William Burt and the Literary Prizes Foundation. The idea is to address  the need for young adult material in the Caribbean, and consequently, to encourage the writing of it. The prize is being administered by the Bocas Lit Fest, Trinidad and Tobago, and the prizes (these are 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd) will be announced at the Bocas Lit Fest in April.

There are 3 Jamaicans on the shortlist, which of itself is sort of wonderful for YA material. We, including myself, will have to stop saying that Jamaicans  don’t read, because it is clear that we do write, so it follows . . . The thing is, it holds great promise for the future.

The other Jamaicans  are A-dZiko Gegele for All Over Again (Blouse and Skirt Books – a new, young publisher, Tanya Batson-Savage, so congrats to them both). I love A-dZiko’s lyrical style; and Inner City Girl by Colleen Smith-Dennis (LMH Publishing), and I have always liked this book, as you know (see post of Dec, 12, 2010 - you can click on the image to the right of this post ). Others shortlisted are: Barrel Girl by Glynis Guevara, Trinidad and Tobago (manuscript), Musical Youth by Joanne Hillhouse, Antigua and Barbuda (manuscript) and Abraham’s  Treasure by Joanne Skerrett, Dominica (Papillotte Press). I’m so delighted for us in the Caribbean that this award now exists and thankful to those who have brought it into being.

To foster interest in YA material, CODE had decided to do workshops on the writing of it,  and these were held this month. Richard Scrimger, a Canadian award winning writer, and I were the facilitators for Jamaica, and Richard and Paloma Mohammed for the Guyana leg. We hope that these will result in even more entries for the next judging period. Exciting prospect! When I was  facilitating that workshop I had no idea that I’d be shortlisted. So it was more so of a revelation. I had forgotten that workshops may also stimulate the facilitators to write. So that's a lovely bonus. In addition, things come to the fore to do with your writing which you may not have recognized, or allowed yourself to realize. Therefore I'll have to write a future blog on what I learned from doing that workshop.

When I wrote my children’s picture book, Cordelia Finds Fame and Fortune, my message, one might say, was fame and fortune can be found at home. There is no need to migrate. The old lady in that story tells Cordelia that she has been all over the world but has not found it. They discover together that it is right here in Jamaica. That book was inspired by my younger daughter, who like Cordelia, stands out as being different. I did not know that until someone brought it to my attention. So that was a revelation!

Island Princess in Brooklyn was inspired by my older daughter’s experience in her short sojourn with her family in the USA. So by then I must have understood  the intertwining of emotion and family with my writing. As I said in my blog for Brown Bookshelf, “This circle of family, of story, fills me with wonder.” ( http://thebrownbookshelf.com/2014/02/19/day-19-diane-brown/ ). However another  revelation,   it seems is that, yes, I can now face up to the fact that it’s not only all right to migrate, it may be essential for some. Elementary, you say; after all,  all island people migrate. Yes, indeed,  but it is not necessarily emotionally accepted deep in one’s heart.

Urban legend  has it that as many Jamaicans live outside Jamaica as live here.

 When Princess meets the old man on the subway with the 'Jamerican'  accent, she begins to think she might be okay.  He is one of us. All the migrations of my extended family before I was born, and my immediate and extended family in the seventies,  did not truly  meld those away with those here. But Princess McQueen did it. She said, ‘We are the same. Our stories are your stories and they deserve also to be told’. Perhaps, just as Princess, who resists the idea that she should need to leave her beloved Jamaica, comes to accept that  both countries can be in her heart, so too, I have accepted this concept, and that only occurred to me recently. The stories of Jamaicans abroad are part of the stories of home. What a revelation!