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Recommended by Mitzie Williams (@mitziedrawingwells)
Form and genre: Short Stories
Length: 206 pages
Summary: “The Cream: Stir It, Watch It, BUT…!” is a compendium of 10 short stories and brings to light a narrative of Struggle and Endurance of our women. This is examined through the lenses of poverty, lack of opportunity and her concept of ‘advancement’, love, family wrangling, deceit, revenge, colourism and more.
Age recommendation and challenging content: Recommended for years 8-11
Notable reasons for recommending this book: It explores the Caribbean narrative and can easily compare and contrast with some of the traditional texts in our classrooms currently
Other useful information: “The Cream: Stir It, Watch It, BUT…!” is a compendium of 10 short stories and brings to light a narrative of Struggle and Endurance. This is examined through the lenses of poverty, lack of opportunity and her concept of ‘advancement’, love, family wrangling, deceit, revenge, colourism and more. Her journey must take her through the undercurrents of stigmas and stereotypes, which not only define and challenge her at times, but must strengthen and birth new resolve. She quickly realizes that the man will love her a yaad, but is a love which must give way to her farin counterpart as her passport is never strong enough; she is useful as a helper in many situations, but must remain as only the server; she understands that ‘blood thicker than water’ but it is this same blood which sometimes blocks everything she does or wants to become. At times, even her own body confirms this – it will produce for others, but not her. She is good enough to keep the pot stirring (making things work for so many others) but she is forbidden to taste the cream (the best part) or is she? Read her struggle, but learn from her endurance!