Louise Bennett loved words. She searched for them, played with them, and found them as tasty as ackee and saltfish.

Louise's favorite words came to life in the Jamaican patois she heard around her. They sprang from her grandmother's stories. They thumped through songs in the street. And they danced lively in the voices of the women dressed by her seamstress mother.

But in school, Louise learned a different sort of English, with starched sentences that lined up straight and proper. And although Louise could write that way, she yearned to find her own voice—one that felt delightful and true.

A Likkle Miss Lou is inspired by the early years of Jamaican poet Louise Bennett Coverley—later known around the world as Miss Lou. In Performances on television and radio, Miss Lou went on to popularize Jamaican patois on an international stage, creating spaces for performers like Harry Belafonte and Bob Marley.

Brought to life in a sun-drenched palette, this is a story of Miss Lou's beginnings as a girl who just wanted to be heard in the language she loved.

From the dust jacket