Product Details:

Publication Date: 2007
English
Recommended Age: 7-11
ISBN: 978-0-9725611-8-1
Format: Hardcover, 9.5” X 11”, 64 Pages
$19.95

New Edition of the Caribbean classic!
More islands included plus newly digitized illustrations that faithfully reproduce the vibrant colors of the original works.

A Caribbean Journey from A to Y

(Read and Discover What Happened to the Z)

By Mario Picayo
Illustrated by Earleen Griswold

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Join us in this fun and educational journey through the Caribbean islands, one letter at a time. From Aruba to Trinidad and from Alligator to Yam, you will learn the names of many of the islands, plus fascinating facts about them. A Caribbean astronaut? From which island? Seals in these tropical waters? An island with over 300 rivers? And what is a cokí? With beautiful illustrations by artist Earleen Griswold drawn during her years living in the Virgin Islands, this is a book that you and your family will enjoy opening again and again. It will captivate, entertain, and educate readers from any part of the world. And wait until you see what they did with the Z...

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Reviews:

“This very original alphabet book gives brief descriptions of many aspects of the geography, animal species and history of the Caribbean. Even though a reader might consider an alphabet book as appropriate only for beginner readers, this one has so much information and poetic language, that older, more mature children will benefit from the information conveyed. Colorful and detailed naïve illustrations accompany the text. The best part of the book is finding out what the Z means to the Caribbean”. — 2008 Americas Award Commended Title

“A Caribbean Journey from A to Y, written by Mario Picayo and illustrated by Earleen Griswold, describes insular portions of the Caribbean region in a manner that truly teaches and delights the child reader for whom the book is intended. Told as an account of the letters of the alphabet, the verbal side of the story engagingly caters to the child’s curiosity offering invaluable information about the flora, the fauna, the landscape, and the human populations of the region. Picayo delivers historical details throughout with beautiful simplicity, as in the explanation of “what happened to Z,” which alerts readers to the slavery period and the presence of Africans in the cultures of the region. With equal command of well chosen details, Griswold’s visual side of the story of A Caribbean Journey from A to Y depicts the rural, the urban, the past, the present, tradition, and change without resorting to binaries, while giving women their due at the center of life in the Caribbean and suggesting the region’s racial and cultural diversity. The images and the words combine to disrupt many of the visual and discursive stereotypes that often recur in representations of the Caribbean. I can think of no better book for children to begin the lifelong adventure of knowing the Caribbean”.
—Silvio Torres-Saillant, Author of An Intellectual History of the Caribbean

“ A simple search in the Internet will tell us that few ABC book about the Caribbean exists. Another, more complex search allows us to see that these kinds of texts usually are limited to the normal experiences of a traditional US or European child. A Caribbean Journey from A to Y (Read and Discover What Happened to the Z), is an alternative to bigger publishers that don’t yet know the market or tastes of Latino and West Indian families nor take them into account in their marketing. In the illustrations we see people of all colours and sizes, carrying out different activities that are particular to the Caribbean. These are today’s natives, past natives, tourists and dozens of starting points for lessons on history, science music and vocabulary. But a child isn’t given a book only because of the lessons we can get them to learn. A book is an object that activates the imagination and transports them to other worlds. For a nine year old child, like mine, a book has to provide just the right details to fire his desires and passion. It could be the birds or the iguanas, the flags, the volcanoes the indigenous people or the yachts. A Caribbean Journey from A to Y (Read and Discover What Happened to the Z) has all of these and more. At the end, the Z surprises us with an invitation to make a leap across the Atlantic and continue the journey”. –Tanya Torres, El Tiempo, NY, 2005.

As you turn the pages, you will discover the many special places, foods, and experiences of the Caribbean. Truly a treasure all on its own, this delightful book is a journey to places near and far that we can all enjoy. It is a reminder of our shared ancestry and celebrates the similarities and differences of each of the islands and their people. Perhaps what we learn the most from this wonderful book is that we are all God’s children, each of us brothers and sisters in paradise. –Cecile Galiber de Jongh, First Lady of the US Virgin Islands, 2007-2014