Tag Archives: Caribbean

Roti Around the World

In this post, our marketing intern Keilin Huang dishes on rotis around the world:

In one of our new LEE & LOW books released this October, Drummer Boy of John John, a young Trinidadian boy named Winston dreams of being in the best band in the Carnival parade, so he can get some of the Roti King’s famous rotis. As Winston puts it, “Carnival jus’ ain’t right without a roti.”

Winston craves these “folded pancakes filled with chicken and secret herbs and spices,” but what exactly is a roti? The word roti means “bread” in Hindi, Urdu, most other North Indian languages, and Malay, and is essentially a round, flat, bread that is cooked on a griddle:

Roti image

Continue reading

This Week in Diversity: Forgotten Shades of Grey

It’s bitterly cold outside (at least here in New York), so stay inside and read! Here’s this week’s selection of articles and essays.

Last month we shared an Indian ad for White Beauty, a skin-lightening cream. Now, a study is highlighting the dangers of these types of products, many of which contain steroids or mercury. A NYTimes Op-Ed looks beyond the products and into the roots of their popularity with an exploration of colorism, the tendency to be biased towards people with lighter skin, even within one’s own racial or ethnic group.

Continue reading

Announcing the 2009 New Voices Award Honor winner!

Lee & Low books New Voices Award Honor sealThis fall, we read over 100 picture book manuscripts submitted to the New Voices Award, our annual contest for unpublished writers of color. Thank you to everyone who submitted, and congratulations to Tiare Williams Solorzano, winner of this year’s New Voices Award Honor!

Continue reading