Under the Breadfruit Tree: Island Poems Book

As in her award-winning Not a Copper Penny in Me House, Monica Gunning brings young readers back to the Jamaica of her childhood. The poems present intimate portraits of family and friends, as children see them in happy times and sad times. There are lively characters in moments both poignant and comical, such as Aunt Mae and her breadfruit trees, Stella-Sue walking like a ballerina to market, and Hilda the higgler, selling her spicy pies. Here is a book filled with the sights, smells, and sounds of the island, and illustrated with simple yet stunning scratchboard artwork by Fabricio Vanden Broeck.

Monica Gunning is the author of the NCTE National Book Not a Copper Penny in Me House: Poems from the Caribbean. Ms. Gunning lives in Laguna Beach, California.

Fabricio Vanden Broeck has received recognition for his illustration from IBBY-Mexico and and Asian Cultural Centre for UNESCO in Tokyo, which awarded him a prize in the Noma Concours for Children's Book Illustration. He lives in Mexico.

A collection of poems about people and places that were part of the author's childhood in Jamaica.