This children’s book by Muriel Kingsley, an award-winning gardener, author, and poet from Thornton Heath, brings together storytelling and horticultural knowledge shaped by a lifetime of growing. Set in Jamica, the book combines imaginative storytelling with real-life plants and animals allowing Muriel to share an image of Jamica with children.
Kingsley is best known for cultivating papayas, pineapples, sugarcane, and bananas in her conservatory. She has won awards for her plants and continues to share the magic that comes out of her garden with the world.
The book is also framed by broader histories of Black life in Britain, reflected in the newspaper cuttings Muriel has collected over the years. A contemporary newspaper clipping in her collection places Kingsley’s story alongside that of Michelle Obama, tracing ancestral histories back to enslavement while referencing a “journey around historical Black Britain”. This highlights how Kingsley’s creative writing is shaped by real-life stories and a desire to share narratives of migration and colonial histories.
