A Likkle Miss Lou: How Jamaican Poet Louise Bennett Coverley Found Her Voice

A Kirkus Reviews most anticipated picture book of fall 2019 by Nadia L. Hohn, named one of CBC’s “6 Black Canadian writers to watch”

Louise Bennett Coverley, better known as Miss Lou, was an iconic poet and entertainer known for popularizing the use of patois in music and poetry internationally—helping to pave the way for artists like Harry Belafonte and Bob Marley to use patois in their work. This picture book tells the story of Miss Lou’s early years, when she was a young girl growing up in Jamaica.

As a child, Miss Lou loved words—particularly the Jamaican English, or patois, that she heard all around her. As a young writer, Miss Lou felt caught between writing “lines of words like tight cornrows,” as her teachers instructed, and words that beat more naturally “in time with her heart.”

The uplifting and inspiring story of a girl finding her own voice, this is also a vibrant, colorful, and immersive look at an important figure in our cultural history. With rich and warm illustrations bringing the story to life, A Likkle Miss Lou is a modern ode to language, girl power, diversity, and the arts.

End matter includes a glossary of Jamaican patois terms, a note about the author’s #OwnVoices perspective as a Jamaican-Canadian writer, and a brief biography of Miss Lou and her connection to Canada, where she lived for 20 years.