Listen to this Story!

Empire geography wheel

This wheel, made around 1930, was used as a teaching tool for British children learning about the empire.  Note that each country was described through ‘facts’ such as exports and imports, but also population of ‘natives’ and ‘white’ people.  Black people in a country like Jamaica were not ‘natives’ any more than the white people living there were, as both had come from somewhere else to live there.

Nursery geography

George Dickson’s A Nursery Geography, illustrated by George Morrow and first published in 1904 by Thomas Nelson, was reprinted several times.  This edition was published around 1920, because the book mentions the Irish Free State.  In the book, two children take a magic carpet ride around the empire; Black children are described by the white children as ‘dear little pets’.  Note the cover’s similarity to the illustration, ‘This game is good enough for me’.

This Game is Good Enough for Me

This is the endpaper to Frank Green’s 1900 book Pictures for Little Englanders, illustration by A.S. Forrest and published by Dean and Son.  A ‘little Englander’ was someone who wanted England to focus solely on home issues and divest itself of its colonial empire, so this book was meant to be satirical both in terms of ‘little’ (meaning children instead of a reduction of the empire) and because its text could be read as an approval of empire.

Three Fingered Jack toy theatre

Three Fingered Jack, The Terror of Jamaica was a play first performed around 1800 about the real life rebel Jack Mansong, who was a thorn in the side of the British Army in Jamaica.  In Victorian England, Three Fingered Jack became a pantomime with Jack as the violent villain.  This toy theatre version of the story from 1898 may be similar to one owned by Treasure Island author Robert Louis Stevenson, who mentions Three Fingered Jack as part of his personal collection in his essay, ‘A penny plain, and two pence coloured’. 

Mamma’s Black Nurse Stories

Mary Pamela Milne Holme, author of Mamma’s Black Nurse Stories, grew up in Fort George, Jamaica, but published this collection of Anansi stories in 1890 from Wedderburn Castle, her home in the Scottish borders.  Her rendering of the trickster stories from African and Caribbean folk culture includes her remembered version of patois, a Jamaican form of English.  As a white British person, she was co-opting Black culture, but because few Black people had access to publishing, she brought these stories to British children who might not ever otherwise have heard them.

Robinson Crusoe

Daniel Defoe’s 1719 Robinson Crusoe was not written for children, but because of its adventure and desert island theme, quickly became adapted for children of all ages and the book in its various forms has remained constantly in print.  This version from around 1905 published by TC and EC Jack and adapted by John Lang, leaves out the original conversation between Crusoe and the indigenous person he saves where, as per the original, Crusoe tells the indigenous man his name will be Friday and then says, ‘I likewise taught him to say Master, and then let him know, that was to be my Name’.  However, despite not including this discussion of mastery, Friday calls Crusoe ‘master’ throughout the book anyway.

Noble Deeds of the World’s Heroines

Henry Charles Moore’s 1904 Noble Deeds of the World’s Heroines contains one of the earliest biographies of Crimean War-era Jamaican nurse Mary Seacole.  Moore borrows liberally from Seacole’s own account of her life, published in 1857, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands, but compares her favourably to her contemporary, Florence Nightingale.

Davy’s Secret

Davy’s Secret, part of the Anyday Series published in the 1950s in London, was written by Diana Bartlett and illustrated by Ingall.  The series contains at least one other ‘empire’ story, Sita’s Secret, set in India.  The family is described sympathetically, but the Caribbean is still depicted as a sunny, happy land full of people who don’t mind being poor.  Bartlett’s version of patois is not based on the actual speech patterns of Caribbean people, unlike Mary Pamela Milne-Home’s, and contributes to a depiction of Black people as uneducated—despite the establishment of the University of the West Indies in 1948.

My Home in Trinidad

Isabel Crombie’s My Home in Trinidad (1959) was, like Davy’s Secret, part of a ‘round the world children’s lives’ series.  Crombie depicts a much more modern version of the Caribbean than in Davy’s Secret, but not as modern as the life depicted in the companion volume, My Home in England.

The Education of West Indian Immigrant Children

The Education of West Indian Immigrant Children, a report from the National Committee on Commonwealth Immigration from 1968, argues that Black children from the Caribbean struggle in schools because they have trouble with English, and trouble with their self-esteem.  Compare this to Bernard Coard’s report, How the West Indian was Made Educationally Subnormal in British Schools, in another display case.

Independent publishing—Black stories for Black children

Getting to Know Ourselves

Getting to Know Ourselves (1972) was the first children’s book published by independent Black publisher Bogle L’Ouverture.  The founder of the press, Jessica Huntley, had heard Bernard Coard speak about Black children in the British educational system, and it inspired her to publish material that would boost Black self-confidence and sense of identity.  The book was written by Coard and his wife Phyllis, and illustrated by Ricardo Wilkins.

Ben Makes a Cake

Verna Wilkins started Tamarind Press in 1987 after her son came home from school with a ‘This is Me’ project where he had coloured himself pink instead of brown.  He said he had coloured himself that way ‘because it was for a book’ and Wilkins wanted to ensure that Black kids (including her son) saw Black children in books.  Ben Makes a Cake (1987), illustrated by Helen Clipson, is one of her earliest publications, and it originally came with educational materials.

Statue of Boy Reading

Mainstream Publishing--Black stories for everyone

A Visitor From Home

Leila Berg decided to publish her Nippers series because she noticed that reading series were designed to replicate middle class lives; she wanted to provide books for working class kids.  Her first books were about white working class kids, but she knew this was not sufficient and asked John La Rose of New Beacon books to suggest some Black writers.  One of the writers he suggested was Beryl Gilroy, one of the first Black headteachers in Britain.  A Visitor from Home (1973), illustrated by Shyam Varma, is one of a trilogy of books about a Black boy named Roy whose parents are from Jamaica but who was born in Britain.

The Story of Afro Hair

K.N. Chimbiri, who wrote and self-published The Story of the Empire Windrush (2018; republished by Scholastic in 2020), has gone on to publish several more histories about Black Britain, including The Story of Afro Hair, published in 2021 with illustrations by Joelle Avelino.  Illustrations from Chimbiri’s Windrush book can be seen in the exhibition displays.

Shawn Goes to School

This American edition of Petronella Breinburg and Errol Lloyd’s My Brother Sean (1973) was one of the first books authored and illustrated by Black British creators to achieve international success.  Lloyd, a painter (see accompanying postcard of his painting of the Notting Hill Carnival) and sculptor who participated in the Caribbean Artists Movement and illustrated children’s books for Bogle L’Ouverture, was runner-up for the 1973 Kate Greenaway Medal for illustration, missing out to Raymond Briggs’ Father Christmas.  Lloyd’s work can be seen in the exhibition displays.

Listen to this Story

Grace Hallworth was a librarian from Trinidad and Tobago who came to Britain and became one of the best-known Black librarian-storytellers in Britain.  She published many collections of Caribbean folk rhymes and stories, including Anansi tales in Listen to this Story (1977).  Her book provided the title for this exhibition.

Rocket Rules (WBD 2022)

Nathan Bryon and Dapo Adeola’s Rocket Rules has another young Black girl who aspires to go into space; she has inspired World Book Day costumes for little girls who finally see themselves represented in a children’s book series.

The Extraordinary Life of Mary Seacole

Naida Redgrave’s The Extraordinary Life of Mary Seacole (2019), illustrated by Alleanna Harris, is another biography about the Jamaican-born nurse who has now become a well-known figure, even mentioned in the National Curriculum. 

Beyond the Secret Garden

While Coard’s How the West Indian is Made Educationally Sub-Normal descried the lack of children’s books with positive Black representation, Darren Chetty and Karen Sands-O’Connor’s Beyond the Secret Garden: Racially Minoritised People in British Children’s Books (2025) is a collection of essays that examines the changing representation of Black and other racially minoritised people throughout British children’s literature.  The cover illustration is by Lucy Farfort, whose work you can also see in the exhibition displays.