Recommended children's booklists sorted by age or topic

Home > Books > Windrush Child

Books

Windrush Child

To login click here

In this heart-stopping adventure, Benjamin Zephaniah shows us what it was like to be a child of the Windrush generation.

Leonard is shocked when he arrives with his mother in the port of Southampton. His father is a stranger to him, it’s cold and even the Jamaican food doesn’t taste the same as it did back home in Maroon Town. But his parents have brought him here to try to make a better life, so Leonard does his best not to complain, to make new friends, to do well at school – even when people hurt him with their words and with their fists.

How can a boy so far from home learn to enjoy his new life when so many things count against him?

Our Review Panel says...

This masterpiece is written by Benjamin Zephaniah, and it delivers a powerful story about what it was like to be part of the Windrush Generation. Based on real events of the time, this fictional story features Leonard – a boy who was born in Jamaica and grew up in England.
We first meet Leonard when he is a child in his native Jamaica, living with his mother and grandmother, surrounded by the sea. The women in his life have instilled a deep sense of his Carribean heritage and history, teaching him the stories that have verbally been handed down through generations…