Zapped Authors, Jewel A. Daniel and Lynelle A. Martin talk about Zapped! Danger in the Cell, the life of an author, and much more.
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Bored young ones?
Entertain the younger children in your life for hours with the Colouring Book Tour of St. Kitts and Nevis.
This lovely colouring and activity book features drawings by Joan Mallalieu. Here is just one of the fifty plus drawings.
The Colouring Book Tour of St. Kitts and Nevis is available at several outlets in St. Kitts including Beauty Essentials, Harpers Office Depot, Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park, Ram’s Supermarket, Valumart Supermarket, and others. It’s also available on Amazon.
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It’s Official! Musical Youth Rocks!
“All-in-all Musical Youth is an entertaining read that reminds teenagers that they will survive their troubles. The writing is vivid; the characters are credible; the idea of using music as a thread to tie the characters together is brilliant.” This is just a small part of the Debbie Jacob’s review in the Trinidad Guardian. She goes on to hail the book as a “Compelling read” that will engage a wide range of readers from 14-22 years old.
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Musical Youth Book Launch
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The official launch of the young adult novel Musical Youth was held at Best of Books in Antigua on Friday 21 November. Author Joanne Hillhouse read an excerpt of the book. In the passage that she read, Shaka, one of the main characters hears a song, Melanin, that he has written play on the radio for the first time. |
Musical Youth Excerpt
 Joanne C. Hillhouse reading at the Best of Books Musical Youth launch |
“The first time he heard his song on the radio, he was doing the dishes after dinner while his mother moved around their small kitchen, putting things away. Pappy was in his chair in the living room, radio turned up on the news, about the only reason he put on the radio since he couldn’t stand modern music or chatty DJs. |
Zahara complained that her Granny Linda always changed the station when music came on; must be an old people thing because as soon as the news presenter signed off, Pappy started making getting up noises. That’s when “Melanin” cut in and though he’d given the CD to Diva himself, Shaka’s body seized up in shock. It was noticeable enough for his mother to ask, “Something wrong? Wha’ happen?”
And he screamed, he wasn’t even ashamed to say it, he screamed, and ran into the living room, pushing past Pappy to turn up the radio as loud as it could go.
“You bwoy!” Pappy chastised.
“That’s my song, that’s my song,” he shouted, and that shut up both Pappy and his mother who had come out from the kitchen with more questions.
He couldn’t stand still; dashed to his room, got his phone and started texting everybody. Zahara first, then the Crew.
Put on the radio. Melanninnn!!!!“
Want to read more? As always, check out our book store here.
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Expanding Our Mission
CaribbeanReads Display
CaribbeanReads participated in the Baltimore Book Festival in October. It was on the beautiful Inner Harbor in Baltimore, a promenade that attracts a lot of people, so in addition to people who came to the festival, there were many others just wandering by.
Build a Cell From Candy
Many of these people stopped to take a look at the CaribbeanReads booth. We had a display put on by Zapped! author, Jewel Daniel. We invited children to make a model of the cell using candy. This drew a big crowd, but most of the people who stopped just to ask questions about the books were people with Caribbean roots. One elderly couple drifted near the booth and as they moved away I overheard the woman say:
“Oh, those are books for people who want their children to go to the beach.”
Really?
“These are books for people who would like to expose their kids to Caribbean culture,” I retorted. Perhaps not the most professional approach, but my aim is to educate.
She kept walking.
I wish that I could convince myself that her attitude was a minority one, but the evidence did not bear this out. People who took our cards and flyers were sure to promise to pass the information on to their Caribbean contacts. Why not to their American, European, African, and Asian friends? I really hope that our customers can break the mold, share Caribbean books with their non-Caribbean friends and bring a little Caribbean warmth into the lives of the rest of the world.
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Leonard Tim Hector Memorial Award
On November 20, 2014 Director General of the National Commission on Science and Technology (NCST), Professor Errol Morrison delivered the address at the 12th Annual Distinguished Leonard Tim Hector Memorial Lecture in Antigua. As a part of the event, the Leonard Tim Hector Memorial Award was presented to CaribbeanReads author, Joanne C. Hillhouse, for her perennial and exemplary contributions to the advancement of Antigus, especially in areas of journalism, literary arts, and the development of our youth.
The late Leonard Tim Hector is described as an Antiguan writer, publisher, politician, educator, culturalist, journalist, historian and cricketeer. 
He published the newspaper The Outlet and the online column “Fan the Flame”. Some of his writings express views very much in line with the CaribbeanReads mission to produce books that tell the stories of Caribbean people.
“When I was younger, and at university my friends used to tell me that West Indian poetry and novels were too real, “too full of the emptiness of life around us” one wrote and “giving little by way of hope” another friend wrote to me. I replied we grew up on the alien “daffodils” which we knew not, on cowboys’ rustlers and assorted crooks in the wild, wild west, so literature always seemed distant. And nothing enhances the view like distance. Our own story near at hand and familiar did not seem like a story worth telling for we thought of ourselves as of little worth in the global scheme of the young and the restless or the bold and the beautiful.”
From: “Fan the Flame” by Leonard “Tim” Hector (by way of Geoffrey Philp’s blog.)
West Indian literature has evolved and expanded beyond the type of writing that Mr. Hector’s friends described. But we must continue to challenge ourselves and to see ourselves, our thoughts, and experiences as worthy and interesting of being recorded and read not only by our own people by worldwide.
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Don’t Eat the Halloween Candy … Just Yet!
If your house is like mine, you still have some candy hanging around from Halloween. If you do, we have the perfect craft for you and your kids. You can build a model animal (eukaryotic) cell with candy.
What you need:
Plate
Jello
Assorted candies for the parts of the cell (organelles)
What you do:
- Set the jello. The Jello is for the cytoplasm, the liquid (mostly water) that fills the cell. You can make the jello and put it in a plastic or Styrofoam disposable plate to set. Think of the plate as the cell membrame, the ‘skin’ of the cell. Paper plates will get soggy, we know this from experience.
- Place assorted candies in the Jello to represent the organelles.
Tootsie rolls: these make great mitochondria. Mitochondria create energy in the cell. They look like boats and might be great for riding on if you ever find yourself shrunk into a cell.
Twizzlers, rainbow licorice, gummy worms or sour patch kids: Use any thin, tube-like candy to make the Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER), a maze of tubes in the cell. Proteins go through and are modified (changed) and sorted. Be careful, you can get lost in there.
Jolly ranchers hard candy: : These hard candy work well for the centrioles, which are usually found in pairs at right angles to each other and get to work when the cell begins to divide (Mitosis). If you don’t have Jolly Ranchers, a short piece of twizzler, tootsie roll or any cylinder shaped candy will work fine.
Orange slice candy or any rectangular or curved candy: These make great Golgi, the post office of the cell where proteins are sorted and sent to different sections of the cell. This could be one way to find your way out of a cell, just make sure you don’t end up in a lysosome. They are deadly.
Gumballs: for the nucleus, the brain of the cell … only one of these, please.
Skittles, Nerds, M&M’s: sprinkle your cell with an assortment of colorful round candy to represent other organelles such as ribosomes (protein makers), lysosomes (which clean up waste in the cell), etc.
Be creative. You can use any candy that you have. Use an apple cut in half or pineapple slice for a healthier cell.
After the authors presented at one school, Jewel’s five year old son was so excited that he came home and made this cell out of candy, without any guidance. He was creative using an apple and gumball for the nucleus and nucleolus and shredded coconut for the microtubules.
After he proudly displayed it for his sisters, he promptly ate his cell. Mmmm….Mmmmm delicious!
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Zapped On Tour
Lynelle and Jewel presented Zapped at a Baltimore elementary school on Friday 14th November
. The school culminated their celebration of National Youth Reading Week by inviting them to discuss Zapped with their students kindergarten through fifth grade. This was eleven year old Lynelle’s first experience doing a school visit, so it was both exciting and nerve-racking.
From the teachers:
“We had an excellent presentation by Authors Jewel Daniel and her daughter Lynelle Martin on Friday. Students were able to hear parts of the story, act out a scene, and complete an interactive activity constructing a cell. Students who didn’t pre-order a book asked about possibly purchasing the book after hearing about what the book is about.” 1st grade teacher.
“Thank YOU! You were both awesome and inspirational!” Kindergarten assistant.
From the authors:
Jewel: Having taught at the college level for the past few years and knowing the difficulty adults have in understanding the biology of the cell I never thought kids so young could be so receptive and excited over things they cannot see. But the kids at Our Lady of Mt Carmel were really wonderful, curious and imaginative. Zapped really turned them on, not only to reading but stimulated their interest in learning about the cell.
Lynelle: It was interesting to talk to the kids from my old school. Some of them were my classmates last year. They were really enthusiastic. We wanted only four kids to volunteer for acting out of the scene from the book, but we had so many volunteers it was hard to choose. When we presented to the younger kids it brought back memories of the times I used to read to first graders and kindergartners when I was in fifth grade.
Visit our book store to purchase your copy of Zapped! Danger in the Cell today.
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Caribbean Adventure Series’ Facelift
When the Caribbean Adventure Series first launched back in 2007, I was doing everything myself including cover design. I’ve always been the first to admit that I have little talent when it comes to the visual arts and I have never been quite happy with the covers. Now that CaribbeanReads Publishing has been launched, I no longer do cover designs, I leave that to experts such as Kathryn Duncan of Karibgraphics. She recently worked with me to redesign the covers for the Adventure Series and I am very pleased with the results. See for yourself.
 
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Let me know what you think and visit our book store to purchase these and others from our catalogue.
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Zahara like Sahara
Zahara like Sahara.
This is the first line of Joanne C. Hillhouse’s new young adult novel Musical Youth.
Zahara is the name of the female protagonist and this is the rhyme taught to her when she was a child. The name is lovely, intriguing. It has an African feel to it and a distinct musical lilt, which is fitting. Musical Youth’s Zahara shares her name with a South African singer-songwriter, poet, and brand ambassador for the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital. Perhaps young Zahara’s mother was a fan of the South African musician. Whether this was the case or not, the name is fitting as Zahara turns out to be a boss guitarist, singer, and song writer even as a teenager.
The name is fitting on a more basic level. Apparently it is of Arabic and Hebrew origin, and means “flowering; shining”. Readers will judge for themselves, but when you read Musical Youth and you are swept along on Zahara’s journey from wall flower to stunning guitarist, those words, “flowering and shining” may seem like the perfect description for this intriguing young lady.
What do you think of the name? Any questions for the author on her choice?
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