Book Review: Justice pon di Road by Aliona Gibson

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Disclosure: I was sent an e-book to review free of charge from Aliona Gibson. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review. I am including links to each item for your convenience but do not receive anything if you purchase them.

You may remember last month for Around the World in 12 Dishes we "visited" Jamaica. I also joined a group of Multicultural Kid Blogs presenting Christmas in Different Lands and we chose Jamaica for that as well. I was lucky enough to have the very talented Aliona Gibson read my Christmas in Jamaica post. She contacted me about her newest book, Justice pon di Road, and asked if I would be willing to review it. I, of course, jumped on the opportunity. When she finished the final copy she sent me an ebook to review. It is wonderful!!

In this story, Gibson shares so much of the Jamaican culture - more than I learned in any of my previous research. The story is about a toddler and his mother going for a walk on the road (pon di road as Jamaicans would say) while on a trip in Jamaica. The story is based on her own family visits to Jamaica. As you read the story you feel like you are experiencing the walk with them and get to really know a bit about the people they meet. When I read it I felt like I was watching Justice learn about a new place and get more comfortable while on the walk. Gibson uses the language of Jamaica throughout the story, and the reader sees how caring the Jamaican people are.

At the end of the story there are pages of information from a patois glossary for the terms used in the book to a map and information about Jamaica and Jamaican National Heroes and other celebrities. You gain so much knowledge just from these pages.

Finally Andy Chou did a beautiful job illustrating the book. The pictures are wonderful and tell the story right along with Gibson's words. Chou did an amazing job showing details of the Jamaican culture. 

This book is self published. Gibson used her own savings to finance the book and used Kickstarter to pay for the printing costs. You can check out her website to buy a copy of the book for $15 and the book's Facebook page to show your support.

This is truly a fabulous multicultural book. Hazel really enjoyed it as well and asked me if we got to keep our copy so we could read it again. Needless to say we are happy to be able to review it and share it here for you.