cover image I Have a News: Rhymes from the Caribbean

I Have a News: Rhymes from the Caribbean

Walter Jekyll. Lothrop, Lee and Shepard Books, $15 (1pp) ISBN 978-0-688-13367-2

Selected from Jekyll's 1907 Jamaican Song and Story, the lively verses in this British import are often written in dialect, and they are invariably surrounded by vibrant, fanciful paintings. First-time illustrator Mair offers a riot of energetic and spirited compositions with tumbling perspectives and skewed designs. But welcome as this contribution to authentic multicultural literature may be, the subject matter is occasionally offensive. In ``Rise a Roof,'' for example, a man laments that ``I an' my wife cannot agree,/ Rise a roof in the morning/ She spread me bed on the dirty floor,/ Rise a roof in the morning/ For Devil made the woman an' God made man,/ Rise a roof in the morning.'' Some may also object to the artwork: while filled with Jamaican motifs, it echoes some of the racial stereotypes found in early American folk art. A concluding ``Note on the Rhymes'' gives background material about the importance of Jekyll's work; musical notations, also at the end of the book, might have been better placed nearer the text to amplify the syncopated rhythms of the rhymes. Ages 5-up. (Sept.)