Gail Johnson

The festival traditions of the African and Caribbean world are rich and varied, and a largely untapped community resource. Have fun exploring it for yourself!

If you want to explore Carnival and the music of a steel band, or to understand why a Jamaican family throws a party after a family member has died, this book is for you.

The history and customs of Kwanzaa, Carnival, Crop Over and other key events in the festival calendar are all beautifully illustrated and brought to life with stories, songs, games, recipes, crafts and activities. Try a taste of Blue Drawers, play Oware and make a Jonkonnu mask!

'...makes an important contribution to our sense of community and mutual appreciation.' [more] Margaret Sheather

Reviews

224pp;
250 x 200mm;
978-1-903458-00-6;
pb; £14.99

' ...a cultural feast and journey that everyone should take.' [more] Barbara Campbell

'...this book is great for black people, but it's even better for everyone.' [more] Benjamin Zephaniah

Benjamin Zephaniah 'Gail Johnson is a visionary, she is a visionary that recognises the importance of history, and she is aware that knowledge of self can inspire people who were once held down to stand proud. This book is great for black people, but it's even better for everyone.'

Barbara Campbell, Publisher, Black Heritage Today

'This book is long overdue. It's wonderful to find a publication that incorporates so much of our culture; that answers questions and settles the curiosity of mainstream as well as those from the black community. African and Caribbean Celebrations is a cultural feast and journey that everyone should take.'

Margaret Sheather, Group Director Community and Adult Care,
Gloucestershire County Council

African and Caribbean Celebrations makes an important contribution to our sense of community and mutual appreciation.

I agree very much with Benjamin Zephaniah's comment that "this book is great for black people, but it's even better for everyone". Some themes emerge from it that are relevant for all of us, whatever our cultural background and, perhaps even more particularly, our awareness of our cultural background.

Those themes are:

• How distinctive cultures survive and are visible through huge and sometimes traumatic change
  
• How they also adapt and fuse as societies change, and so the book seems to me to celebrate human development and change and the ability of people to adapt to each other
  
• The ways in which food, festivals and beliefs interlink to form a culture that we can be more or less conscious of, but which most of us know is important for some reason
  
• The magic of storytelling - it was great to be reminded of the power of the oral tradition at a time when even our more recent written tradition and records are sometimes seen as under threat in the electronic, sound bite age.

African and Caribbean Celebrations combines two things very skilfully: it identifies separate origins in a rich and fascinating account, but it also draws things together in a way that one hopes speaks of the greater mutual understanding we can achieve.