Tamarind_Books

Tamarind Books

Tamarind Books

British publisher of children's books

Tamarind Books was a small independent British publisher specialising in picture books, fiction and non-fiction featuring black and Asian children and children with disabilities. It was founded by Verna Wilkins in 1987 with the mission of redressing the balance of diversity in children's publishing,[1] and in 2007 became an imprint of Random House Children's Books UK.

Quick Facts Parent company, Founded ...

History

Verna Wilkins

Tamarind Books was founded by Grenada-born[2] Verna Wilkins in 1987 after her five-year-old son came home from school with a "This is Me" booklet in which he had coloured himself pink. When she offered him a brown crayon to use instead, he refused, saying that the image he had drawn of himself had to have pink skin because it was for a book.[3][4] When she researched the matter further, she arrived at the conclusion that her child and other children from the ethnic minorities were so under-represented in children's books that they were being denied an important stage in their learning, so she decided to start publishing books to meet that need.[5]

For twenty years, Wilkins ran Tamarind Books from her home, writing many of the books herself, working with the support of her family and a small group of friends and freelancers. New books were published only when there was enough money in the company bank account. In the early years, she sold the books herself.[6] Later, Tamarind books were distributed by commercial distributors.

Two of the imprint's best-known titles, both written by Wilkins, are The Life of Stephen Lawrence (2001),[7] and Dave and The Tooth Fairy (1993), featuring a computer-literate black tooth fairy.[8][9] Tamarind also specialises in biographies of black role models, in the Black Stars series, which includes biographies of Malorie Blackman, Benjamin Zephaniah, Rudolph Walker, Baroness Scotland, Chinwe Chukwuogo-Roy, David Grant and Samantha Tross.[10]

Acquisition by Random House

In 2007, Tamarind Books was acquired by Random House Group Ltd and became an imprint of Random House Children's Books (UK).[11]

In 2008, Tamarind Books was awarded the Decibel Cultural Diversity Award in the British Book Awards (Nibbies).[12]

In October 2009, Wilkins retired from publishing,[13] and a successor, Patsy Isles, was announced. In January 2011, a new team comprising editors from Random House (Ruth Knowles, Parul Bavishi, Joe Marriott and Sue Buswell) were brought in to run Tamarind, with Verna Wilkins acting as a consultant, with the patrons of Tamarind, alongside Wilkins, being Michael Rosen, Benjamin Zephaniah, Jamila Gavin and Meera Syal.[14][15]

The titles that were historically published under the Tamarind Books imprint are now part of the Puffin and Ladybird lists.[16]

Awards

References

  1. [1]
    "About Us", Tamarind website.
  2. [2]
    "Biography - Verna Wilkins", Government of Grenada, 30 September 2011.
  3. [3]
    Agnew, Kate (7 October 2008). "Imaginary worlds where everyone is the same colour". The Guardian.
  4. [4]
    Article for BBIA, Publishing News. Archived 17 September 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  5. [5]
    "Tamarind Books' Verna Wilkins talks to Michelle Brooks about Making her Mark on Children's books", OHTV interview. YouTube, 24 August 2010.
  6. [6]
    Shercliff, Emma (18 August 2014). "Books for the Masses? Publishing Genre Fiction in Africa: Africa Writes, 13 July 2014". Africa in Words.
  7. [7]
    McGavin, Harvey (20 April 2001). "Life and death of a south London schoolboy". TES.
  8. [8]
    "Dave and the Tooth Fairy". Publishers Weekly. 29 September 2008. Retrieved 17 December 2023.
  9. [9]
    "Dave and The Tooth Fairy". BookTrust. Retrieved 17 December 2023.
  10. [10]
    Wilkins, Verna (15 April 2008). Samantha Tross: Surgeon. Tamarind. ISBN 978-1-870516-48-8.
  11. [11]
    "Random House acquires Tamarind", The Bookseller, 7 December 2007.
  12. [12]
    Jones, Philip (14 May 2008). "Foyles and CCV pick up nibbies". The Bookseller. Retrieved 8 December 2023.
  13. [13]
    "Tamarind Publisher Verna Wilkins To Retire At RHCB", Book2book, 30 October 2009.
  14. [14]
    "Tamarind Announces New Patrons", 6 December 2011.
  15. [15]
    Williams, Charlotte (9 January 2012). "Tamarind: 'more multicultural writing needed'". The Bookseller. Retrieved 8 December 2023.
  16. [16]
    Tamarind Books at Puffin.
  17. [17]
    IPG (March 2007). "Independent Publishing Awards: The Pick of Independent Publishing". Independent Publishers Guild. Archived from the original on 13 May 2007. Retrieved 25 September 2013. IPG Diversity Award [...] Highly commended in this category was Tamarind Books, an independent that has specialised in multicultural children's books and titles for black children in particular for 20 years.
  18. [18]
    Publishing News, 2008. Archived 13 April 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  19. [19]
    "Verna Wilkins | The reluctant publisher – 20 years on", The Galley Club, 2008–2009.
Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Tamarind_Books, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.