Zahra Gor­don

This Christ­mas, why not give a Caribbean book? We've round­ed up some of the best books of the year for chil­dren, young peo­ple and adults.

The list was com­piled by speak­ing to in­dus­try ex­perts: man­ag­ing ed­i­tor of Anans­esem Caribbean Chil­dren's Mag­a­zine Sum­mer Ed­ward, school li­brar­i­an and au­thor Deb­bie Ja­cob, Caribbean Re­view of Books ed­i­tor Nicholas Laugh­lin and writer Sharon Mil­lar. See list be­low.

NB: Book de­scrip­tions are from pub­lish­ers' blurbs.

Chil­dren

Look Back! by Tr­ish Cooke (Pa­pil­lote Press, 2013)

"Look Back! cel­e­brates the re­la­tion­ship be­tween a grand­moth­er and her grand­son as she tells him about her Caribbean child­hood ad­ven­tures in the rain­for­est in search of a mys­te­ri­ous crea­ture called Ti Bolom."

An­na Car­ries Wa­ter by Olive Se­nior (Tradewind Books, 2014)

"A beau­ti­ful­ly il­lus­trat­ed pic­ture book, set in Ja­maica, about a girl learn­ing to bal­ance wa­ter from the spring on her head."

A is for Ay­i­ti by Ibi Zoboi (One Moore Book, 2012)

"An al­pha­bet book that ex­plores the rich cul­ture of Haiti."

The Les­son Box by Tre­gen­za Roach (Lit­tle Bell Caribbean, 2012)

"Find out how two sev­en-year-olds han­dle a sit­u­a­tion af­ter a mys­te­ri­ous, shiny box lands in their hands while out run­ning an er­rand."

Par­rots over Puer­to Ri­co by Su­san L Roth (Roth Lee & Low Books, 2013)

"A pic­ture book telling the in­ter­twined his­to­ries of the Puer­to Ri­can par­rot and the is­land of Puer­to Ri­co, cul­mi­nat­ing with cur­rent ef­forts to save the par­rots from ex­tinc­tion."

Re­mem­ber­ing Pe­ter Tosh by Ceil Tul­loch (Ian Ran­dle Pub­lish­ers, 2013)

"This book cap­tures the thoughts of many of Tosh's clos­est con­fi­dants and gen­er­als to take you in­side the mind of the ge­nius Bush Doc­tor."

If I Nev­er Went Home by In­grid Per­saud (Blue Chi­na Press, 2013)

"Writ­ten in two dis­tinct, al­ter­nat­ing voic­es, If I Nev­er Went Home fol­lows ten years in the tur­bu­lent lives of two nar­ra­tors–30-some­thing Bea, an im­mi­grant in Boston, and ten-year-old Tina in Trinidad–as they sep­a­rate­ly nav­i­gate dev­as­tat­ing loss­es, ill­ness and be­tray­al in their quest to be­long."

As Flies to What­less Boys by Robert An­toni (Akashic Books, 2013)

"This trag­ic his­tor­i­cal nov­el, ac­cent­ed with West In­di­an ca­dence and cap­ti­vat­ing hu­mour, pro­vides an un­for­get­table glimpse in­to 19th-cen­tu­ry T&T. The book's nar­ra­tor, Willy, falls head­over- heels for the en­thralling and wise Mar­guerite Whitechurch. Com­ing from the gen­try, Mar­guerite is a world away from Willy's labour­ing class."

Claire of the Sea Light by Ed­widge Dan­ti­cat (Quer­cus Books, 2013)

"From the best-sell­ing au­thor of Broth­er, I'm Dy­ing and The Dew Break­er: a stun­ning new work of fic­tion that brings us deep in­to the in­ter­twined lives of a small sea­side town where a lit­tle girl, the daugh­ter of a fish­er­man, has gone miss­ing."

Black Sand: New and Se­lect­ed Po­ems by Ed­ward Baugh (Peepal Tree Press, 2013)

"Bring­ing to­geth­er pre­vi­ous­ly pub­lished works and orig­i­nal po­ems these po­ems cov­er a wide swath of sub­jects, in­clud­ing race, his­to­ry, crick­et, love, the aca­d­e­m­ic life, and the con­so­la­tions of nat­ur­al beau­ty. With shrewd­ly an­a­lyt­i­cal eye, ad­di­tion­al works look at a mod­ern Ja­maica that at once in­cludes the worlds of ur­bane pol­ish, gat­ed com­mu­ni­ties, re­li­gious en­thu­si­asm, and a black ma­jor­i­ty still strug­gling to over­come the wrongs in­flict­ed in the past."

Wish­ing for Wings by Deb­bie Ja­cob (Ian Ran­dle Pub­lish­ers, 2013)

"Based on a true sto­ry told in her Guardian columns, Wish­ing for Wings re­counts Deb­bie's chal­leng­ing jour­ney of prepar­ing sev­en young men for the Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tions Coun­cil (CXC) Eng­lish Lan­guage ex­am. Heart­break­ing but al­so en­cour­ag­ing, Deb­bie's sto­ry and those of her stu­dents, of­fer an un­prece­dent­ed look in­to the lives of trou­bled teens and boys in prison."

Sic Tran­sit Wag­on and oth­er sto­ries by Bar­bara Jenk­ins (Peepal Tree Press, 2013)

"In Jenk­ins' de­but, the sto­ries move from the all-see­ing naivete of a child nar­ra­tor through the con­scious­ness of the child-be­come moth­er, to the ma­ture per­cep­tions of the old­er woman tak­ing stock of her life. Set over a time-span from colo­nial era Trinidad to the haz­ards and alarms of its post­colo­nial present, at the core of these sto­ries is the ex­pe­ri­ence of un­com­fort­able change."

Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of In­den­ture, by Gaiu­tra Ba­hadur (Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go Press, 2013)

"Coolie Woman is a med­i­ta­tion on sur­vival, a grip­ping sto­ry of a dou­ble di­as­po­ra–from In­dia to the West In­dies in one cen­tu­ry, Guyana to the Unit­ed States in the next–that is at once a search for one's roots and an ex­plo­ration of gen­der and pow­er, per­il and op­por­tu­ni­ty."

RE­VENGE OF THE PRINT BOOK

When Ama­zon re­leased their Kin­dle e-read­er in 2008, many ex­perts pre­dict­ed the ex­tinc­tion of print books. How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to the Wall Street Jour­nal, re­cent stud­ies have dis­proved this trend. In an ar­ti­cle ear­li­er this year, the WSJ re­port­ed that a Pew Re­search Cen­ter sur­vey of reg­u­lar Amer­i­can read­ers showed on­ly 30 per cent had read an e-book in the past year. The re­port said the per­cent­age of adults who had read e-books had on­ly risen from 16 to 23 per cent. There was al­so an abrupt drop in e-books sales in 2012, ac­cord­ing to the ar­ti­cle which said sales had dropped from an an­nu­al growth rate in the triple dig­its to 34 per cent. WSJ colum­nist and au­thor Nicholas Carr be­lieves print books have "sur­vived 500 years of tech­no­log­i­cal up­heaval" and are here to stay. He said there was a cer­tain nos­tal­gia and spe­cial "some­thing" about print books that read­ers are not ready to give up.

What is an e-book?

An e-book or elec­tron­ic book is a dig­i­tal book-length pub­li­ca­tion read­able on com­put­ers or oth­er elec­tron­ic de­vices.

Some pop­u­lar e-read­er brands:

Ama­zon Kin­dle �2 Barnes & No­ble Nook �2 Kobo �2 Sony Read­er �2 Bookeen How much does an e-book cost? In March, Forbes.com re­port­ed that the av­er­age cost of an e-book was US$8.

How can you buy e-books as gifts?

E-books can be pur­chased as gifts for friends and fam­i­ly who own e-read­ers by vis­it­ing book­sellers' Web sites. Some pop­u­lar sell­ers in­clude Ama­zon.com and Bar­ne­sand­No­ble.com. The ebooks are de­liv­ered to the read­ers via e-mail.

Se­lec­tions for young read­ers

The Moko Jumbi Ma­jorette Se­ries by Alscess Lewis-Brown (Lit­tle Bell Caribbean, 2012)

"Life be­comes a roller­coast­er for our young hero­ine, Lexi, as she learns that get­ting what you want comes with a price, es­pe­cial­ly when what you want is not yours to have." Se­ries in­cludes Moko Jumbi Dreams, Promise of the Pome­gran­ate, and The Moko Jumbi Ma­jorette.

Fury on Soufriere Hills by Car­ol Ot­t­ley-Mitchell (CAS, 2013)

"In Fury on Soufriere Hills, two best friends are thrown in­to an ex­cit­ing ad­ven­ture as they trav­el in­to the past to the is­land of Montser­rat, where they must try to save the Carib peo­ple from be­ing de­stroyed by a vol­canic erup­tion."

Flow­ers in the Sky by Lynn Joseph (Harper­Teen, 2013)

"Ni­na Perez is faced with hard­ship when she leaves her lush is­land home in Samana, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, to live with her broth­er, Dar­rio, in New York, to seek out a bet­ter life. A pow­er­ful sto­ry of a girl who must make her way in a new world and find her place with­in it."

The Light­ning Dream­er: Cu­ba's Great­est Abo­li­tion­ist by Mar­gari­ta En­gle (HMH Books for Young Read­ers, 2013)

"The most dar­ing abo­li­tion­ists were po­ets who veiled their work in metaphor. Of these, the bold­est was Gertrud­is G�mez de Avel­lane­da, nick­named Tu­la. In pas­sion­ate vers­es En­gle evokes the voice of the abo­li­tion­ist who brave­ly re­sist­ed an arranged mar­riage at the age of 14, and was ul­ti­mate­ly coura­geous enough to fight against in­jus­tice. His­tor­i­cal notes, ex­cerpts, and source notes round out this trib­ute."