Alex Wheatle - Kemosha of the Caribbean

Finalist for the 2021 NSK Neustadt Prize for Childrens Literature
Winner of the Guardian Childrens Fiction Prize 2016
Nominated for the CILIP Carnegie Medal 2017

For Cane Warriors

Short-listed for the 2020 Caribbean Readers Awards (Best Young Adult Novel)
Short-listed for the YA Book Prize 2021

Wheatle brings the struggle of slavery in the Jamaican sugar cane fields to life A refreshing and heartbreaking story that depicts both a real-life uprising against oppression and the innate desire to be free. Highly recommended.

School Library Journal, starred review

Alex Wheatle departs from his award-winning contemporary novels for a superb foray into historical fiction Wheatles characteristic kennings and coinages heighten this intense, affecting story of courage, bloodshed, and commitment to freedom at all costs.

Guardian (UK)

Cane Warriors centers the voice of the enslaved rather than white abolitionists. In this way, readers face the reality of enslaved people who fought for their own freedom.

Worlds of Words, Book of the Month recommendation

I read it in one sitting. I simply could not put it down. Cane Warriors is such a powerful narrative of trauma and triumph Wheatle celebrates the heroism that Tacky inspires. He tells the riveting story of fourteen-year-old Moa who bravely joins Tackys army.

Gleaner (Jamaica)

Set in 1760, Cane Warriors, the latest young adult novel by Alex Wheatle, is a fictional account of a key but often overlooked event in Jamaican history: Tackys Rebellion, a major revolt by enslaved Africans, planned via an island-wide conspiracy. In Wheatles narrative, a fourteen-year-old named Moa is caught up in the growing revolt, driven by a fierce desire for freedom and self-determination.

Saturday Express (Trinidad & Tobago)

For Home Girl

With a tough exterior and brash attitude, Naomi is an authentic character in an unfortunate yet accurate picture of modern-day foster care in the UK The ending is neither predictable nor sugarcoated, leaving readers rooting for this determined heroine.

School Library Journal

Wheatle returns to the world of his award-winning Crongton books with his most powerful and personal novel yet. Naomi Brisset is a teenage girl growing up too fast in the UK care system. Her journey through a series of foster homes exposes the unsettling, often heart-wrenching truth of this life. Yet despite the grit, Wheatles writing is as rich and warm as ever, bringing courage and hope to an unforgettable heroines story.

Bookseller (UK), Editors Choice

Teenager Naomi, old before her time and as vulnerable as she is fierce, is growing up in the care system. Foster homes and pupil referral units revealing the unsettling, often bewildering reality of this existence. Wheatles empathy, authentic characters, and rich dialogue illuminate the dark.

Observer Magazine (UK)

Another powerful and poignant novel deftly created by one of the most prolific master novelists on either side of the pond. Home Girl is a page-turner, with not a dull moment. Loved it from the rooter to the tooter.

Eric Jerome Dickey, New York Times best-selling author of Before We Were Wicked

Alex Wheatles latest novel offers no unrealistic fairy tale happy ending. But the award-winning writer, who draws on his own experiences of a childhood in care, does offer some hope for Naomi, a sometimes difficult but very likable heroine.

Irish News, Childrens Book of the Week

A young adult novel by

ALEX WHEATLE

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors imagination. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published by Akashic Books

2022 Alex Wheatle

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-61775-982-6

Hardcover ISBN:978-1-63614-000-1

e-ISBN: 978-1-61775-994-9

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021935240

All rights reserved

First printing

Black Sheep

c/o Akashic Books

Brooklyn, New York

Twitter: @AkashicBooks

Instagram: @AkashicBooks

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Website: www.akashicbooks.com

More books for young adult readers from Black Sheep

Cane Warriors by Alex Wheatle

Home Girl by Alex Wheatle

Zero OClock by C.J. Farley

Around Harvard Square by C.J. Farley

Game World by C.J. Farley

Changers Book One: Drew

Changers Book Two: Oryon

Changers Book Three: Kim

Changers Book Four: Forever

by T Cooper & Allison Glock-Cooper

Broken Circle by J.L. Powers and M.A. Powers

Pills and Starships by Lydia Millet

The Shark Curtain by Chris Scofield

A New Master

Captain Tate Plantation, St. Catherine, Jamaica, 1668

I was scrubbing the pots in the cookhouse with the split ends of a thick sugarcane when I heard the bell ringing from the front of Captains big house. The afternoon sun would soon sink behind the northern hills. The high clouds were still today but I awaited a hint of the rising full moon. The small creatures in the fields had come out to quarrel again.

My cookhouse sister, Marta, paused her drying of plates, knives, and forks. She was twenty years older than me. It might have been twenty-twoshe wasnt sure. The bell rang out again. Marta squeezed her eyes shut. She reopened them and dread crept over her face.

Asase Ya! she bawled. Mama of de world! Dem about to lash another one. Why cyant they behave demselves?

I dried my hands on my frock. I looked at my palms and they were hard, red, and blistered. It might not be dat, Marta, I said. Sun soon fall. It could be someting else.

Marta shook her head. Strands of gray collected around her temples. She hadnt secured her black tie-head tightly today and it almost slipped off her forehead. She didnt seem to notice. Kemosha! Kemosha! she repeated. Foolish chile. What else could it be? Captain dont bother shake him bell for anyting else. Him love to whip somebody in front of everybody before him tek him rest.

You never know, I said. Captain might give we our freedom. Mama used to say to never stop believing. He might be going off to de broad blue waters once more to war wid de Spanish. Captain nuh love de Spanish.

Marta laughed hard. Foolish, foolish chile! Dont your fifteen years teach you anyting? You dream too plenty. Just like your dead mama. Me used to dream too. But now me dont waste me time.

They will never tek me dream from me, I said.