A double page spread shows what carnival means to the adults in Cecille’s life Jump Up! is a story of resourcefulness, hope and inspiration, which tells us how people living in the most dehumanising circumstances were able to create a new and enduring human celebration. That’s another important element of this book: it celebrates creativity. I learned lots of new things – the steel pan drums are very familiar to me from Birmingham streets, but I didn’t know that their origins were from when enslaved people were forbidden to use drums and instead created rhythms on pans and other things. It includes a useful vocabulary list with the meaning and origins of common Carnival words. At the end there is a non-fiction section which gives more information on the topic. Jump Up! starts with a fiction story told through a little girl’s eyes, about the first carnival. Carnival! It’s a familiar word and many children will have been to one, but how did it all begin? Author and illustrator Ken Wilson-Max brings to life the roots and the meaning of this celebration of freedom, which stretches all the way back through the memories and traditions of enslaved people, to Africa.
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