Doctor Bird and Blue Mahoe series back by popular demand
THE Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture said it has redesigned and published stories in the Doctor Bird and Blue Mahoe series in an effort to encourage reading among students in primary and secondary schools.
The books were produced at a cost of $4,760,000.
The Doctor Bird series was designed for Grades 4-6 students in primary schools, while the Blue Mahoe series was produced for students in secondary schools.
Stories in the latter series were extracted from an anthology in the High Interest and Language Arts Project, a joint programme by the Organisation of American States and the ministry in 1987.
LMH Publishing Limited was contracted to redesign and print 10,000 copies of three titles in the Blue Mahoe series, while Ian Randle Publishers redesigned and printed 4,000 copies each of the five titles in the Doctor Bird series.
The publishing houses submitted tenders for the contract and were selected according to the ministry’s procurement guidelines. They were responsible for all aspects of the publication, including commissioning of artwork, designing and printing.
Claudette Carter, acting assistant chief education officer in the Media Services Unit of the ministry, explained that the books in the Doctor Bird series were redesigned because over time, the original publications, which were on newsprint, faded and appeared unattractive.
“The stories, however, were very popular among students and were listed as resource material in the Revised Curriculum,” she said.
Books in the Blue Mahoe series were published for the ministry’s ongoing literacy campaign at the secondary level. “The stories were chosen as they relate to Caribbean experiences and were written by popular Jamaican authors,” Carter added.
Some of the stories from the Blue Mahoe series include Mary Seacole by Jean Goulbourne; and Eileen Marshall’s Footprints for all Times, which relates the life of Edith Dalton-James, the first female president of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association.
Stories in the Doctor Bird series include: In Jamaica Where I Live; The Cat Woman and The Spinning Wheel; Sweet, Sweet Mango Tree; How Did We Get Here? and Travel by Air, Land and Sea.
