George
The Young Heroines and Pirates at Dolphin Park
Author: Pamela Ann George
Reviewer: Laura Tanna
Publisher: Serendipity, Darlington, 2005
THE MOST delightful book has reached Jamaica just in time for Christmas! Beautifully written, The Young Heroines and Pirates at Dolphin Park is composed of two stories featuring the adventures of three Jamaican children. With treasure map in hand, the children in the first story, 'The Young Heroines of Dolphin Park', enter the magical world of Dragon 'Fairies', scamper across fields and rivers, hunt through underground caves, and uncover hidden Taino artefacts.
The second, longer narrative, 'Pirates at Dolphin Park', has a time machine hooked up to their father's computer, which transports the children back to Port Royal a day before the earthquake of June 7, 1692. Pirates Dafyd Edwards, Claw Hand Caleb, Scarface and Silent Sam are as real to me now as my next-door neighbour, so vividly does author George conjure up visions of Port Royal in its heyday.
DAMSELS
Spanish treasure ships, damsels in distress, Lieutenant-Governor Sir Henry Morgan and the Marquis de Sevilia all make for a page-turning read. I'm talking about my turning the pages to find out what happens next, even though the book was actually written when three years ago the author couldn't find anything more for her ten-year-old granddaughter in the local bookstores. I felt as though I were back reading my favourite Nancy Drew mysteries.
Part of the pleasure resides in the manner in which the author skilfully incorporates an admiration for Jamaican history and local settings into the narratives, infusing the situations with common sense, manners, civic pride and a thirst for knowledge, without ever moralising or detracting from the good-natured bantering that exists amongst the three children as they look after each other during their adventures.
Pamela Ann George, better known in medical circles as Dr. George, MB,BS. (Lond.), first started teaching preventive medicine at UWI in 1959, serving also with the University Health Service. For twenty years she and a team of doctors carried out research investigating causes and ways of treating and preventing complications of diabetes, especially diabetic gangrene. Her previous writing consists of scientific publications in highly respected medical journals.
FASCINATING HERITAGE
Perhaps Dr. George's enthusiasm for bringing Jamaican history so enchantingly to life for her grandchildren may be found in her own family's fascinating heritage.
Born in Kingston as Pamela Ann Richards, her father was an engineer from the U.K., but George - married to QC Emil George - can trace her Jamaican ancestry on her mother's side to circa 1790 when her relative Stephen Drew bought Dry Sugar Estate near Spanish Town. Avid abolitionists, the family eventually built a Methodist church on their lands and through marriage go back to Lavinia Grier of Grier Park and Belmont Estates in St. Ann and to John Hardwar, remembered today for Hardwar Gap in the Blue Mountains.
POWERS OF OBSERVATION
Perhaps it is due to a concern for other human beings, or more highly honed powers of observation that the world of literature counts many a doctor amongst its authors and Pamela George is bound to become one of Jamaica's better-known authors, certainly of books for the younger set.
The adventures of the three heroines of Dolphin Park, Lavinia, aged eleven, Petula, aged nine, and Harriet, aged six, documented by George's own hand in full colour illustrations depicting an Arawak Zemi, the 'Silver Skull' pirate ship, the Port Royal Queen public house and other equally evocative images enhance the volume's refreshingly direct appeal. Both Jamaican authors Olive Senior and Velma Pollard joined me in reading the original manuscript and recommended it for publication. We're very pleased to see that others will now have the chance to read The Young Heroines and Pirates at Dolphin Park, available at Sangster's Sovereign Centre from December 10.
