Showing results by publisher "Blue Banyan Books" in All Categories

Growing up is hard. You know this. And when your mother has X-ray eyes and dances like a wobbling bag of water? When your father’s idea of fun is to put all your money in a savings account and make you get up at 5 am every Sunday morning? When Kenny, Percival Thorton High’s big show-off, is after Christina Parker - your Christina Parker? And when you have a shrimp of a little sister who is the bawlingest little six year old girl in the whole of Riverland? Then growing up is something you not sure you can manage at all. Who in their right mind could? Who? You?

Jason, Chevaughn, Shana, Summer, and Kyle all have one thing in common—they’re not quite like everyone else. Growing up is tough enough, and when you add being different to the mix, it makes it that much harder. But sometimes being different just means that you were made to stand out, to break the mould, and be your most amazing you. Our five young heroes take us into their dreams of dancing, adventure and being seen for who they really are, and leave us all a little better for having met them.

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 inline 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 it’s 1959 and the secret Progressive Group has just announced a boycott of all cinemas in Bermuda in order to end racial segregation.

The poems in Riddim & Riddles throb with the heartbeat and drum beat of Jamaica. From the cool, majestic Blue Mountains to the hot, bloodied streets of Kingston it paints vivid and vibrant images of contemporary Jamaica. The poems in this collection move from urgent social insights about masculinity, the environment, and how the bony fingers of history reach into the present.