THE Guyanese bookshelf is short on children literature. The Guyanese bookshelf is especially short on such material written by local authors.

A recent visit to Guyana by John Agard and Grace Nichols, in a way, exposed this shortage glaringly. While in Guyana, both writers launched books; Nichols launched ‘Sun Time Snow Time’, a collection of poems for children, while Agard launched ‘Travel Light Travel Dark’.
Just a mere listing of their output, individually and collectively, will show how much they have contributed to this specialized art of writing for children. It would be a challenge in this short article to examine each book in a corpus numbering in excess of two scores and ten books.

Children’s Books by Agard
•    Letters for Lettie, and Other Stories. Bodley Head, 1979
•    I Din Do Nuttin, and Other Poems. Bodley Head, 1983
•    Limbo Dancer in Dark Glasses. Greenheart, 1983
•    Say It Again, Granny!. Bodley Head, 1986
•    Lend Me Your Wings. Hodder & Stoughton, 1987
•    Go Noah Go!. Hodder & Stoughton, 1990
•    Laughter is an Egg. Viking, 1990
•    The Calypso Alphabet. Collins, 1990
•    The Emperor’s Dan-dan. Hodder & Stoughton, 1992
•    Granfather’s Old Bruk-a-Down Car. Bodley Head, 1994
•    Oriki and the Monster Who Hated Balloons. Longman, 1994
•    The Monster Who Loved Cameras. Longman, 1994
•    The Monster Who Loved Telephones. Longman, 1994
•    The Monster Who Loved Toothbrushes. Longman, 1994
•    Eat a Poem, Wear a Poem. Heinemann Young Books, 1995
•    We Animals Would Like a Word With You. Bodley Head, 1996
•    Einstein, The Girl Who Hated Maths. Hodder Children’s Books, 2002
•    Hello H20. Hodder Children’s Books, 2003
•    Baby Poems. Frances Lincoln Children’s Books, 2005
•    The Young Inferno (illustrated by Satoshi Kitamura). Frances Lincoln Children’s Books, 2008
•    Goldilocks on CCTV (illustrated by Satoshi Kitamura). Frances Lincoln Children’s Books, 2011

Children’s Books by Nichols
•    Trust You, Wriggly, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1981
•    Baby Fish and Other Stories from Village to Rain Forest, London: Nanny Books, 1983
•    A Wilful Daughter, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1983
•    Leslyn in London, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1984
•    The Discovery, London: Macmillan Education, 1986
•    Come On Into My Tropical Garden: Poems for Children, London: A. & C. Black, 1988
•    Can I Buy a Slice of Sky?: Poems from Black, Asian and American Indian Cultures (editor), Knight Books
•    Poetry Jump Up: An Anthology of Black Poetry, Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, 1989
•    Give yourself a hug
Children’s Books by Nichols and Agard
•    Under the Moon and Over the Sea. Walker Books, 2002
•    No Hickory, No Dickory, No Dock . Viking, 1991
•    From Mouth to Mouth. Walker, 2004
•    Tiger Dead! Tiger Dead!: Stories from the Caribbean. Collins Educational, 2008
•    A Caribbean Dozen. Walker Books, 1994
The work of both writers have found their way into some significant anthologies, including ‘ Heinemann Book of Caribbean Poetry’,  ‘The Penguin Book of Caribbean Verse’,  and ‘Caribbean Poetry Now’.
Both writers have also authored books for adult readership, which is lesson for all emerging writers who seem to target an adult readership from the word go. (I am examining this obsession in a longer essay.)
Both writers were born in Guyana, later moving to the UK, where they now live together with their children.
Grace Nichols was born into a world of books and music. Her father was a head-teacher, and at home, she was surrounded by books; she was fascinated by the kingdom of books and language. Her mother used to give piano lessons. The music in her poetry came from that and other sources, like the singing of birds, the whistle of the wind in the mangrove, the roar of the Atlantic Ocean, the rhythm of calypso music and the beat of pan, the call of the fisherman and the fruit vendor, the odour of mud and salt when she went crab hunting, the mystery of fishes under the surface of sun kiss water, the silence of a dark country night, the eerie jumbie story, the closeness of storytelling, the folktales, the tricks of Anancy, the lusty singing in church, the correctness of Standard English and the colourful creolese, the whole of the morning sky, the whole of the evening sky.
Nichols has won the Commonwealth Prize and the Guyana Prize for Literature. In 1977, she migrated to the UK, along with another influence on her life and work: John Agard.
John Agard started his writing career during his high school days. His poetry and short fiction surfaced in a literary magazine, ‘Expression’, which was launched in 1966. He continued to fine-tune his writing skills as a feature writer and subeditor at the Guyana Sunday Chronicle.
In 1977, Agard migrated to the UK, and immediately hitched himself to the literary circuit, first as a touring lecturer for the Commonwealth Institute, then as Writer in Residence at the South Bank Centre, London, and later Poet in Residence at the BBC, in London.
From that central area of the literary world, Agard was able to move from land to land, making landfall at various places, including Guyana, his land of birth, and his backyard in the Caribbean.
Agard has won numerous prizes and awards, including the Casa de las Americas, the Guyana Prize for Literature, and the 2012 Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry.
The Guyanese bookshelf on children literature is expanding, due to the efforts of The Guyana Annual that has become a platform for such writing, and a few publishing houses that are encouraging local writers to prepare reading material for children. (To respond to this author, either call him on (592) 226-0065 or send him an email: oraltradition2002@yahoo.com)