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Austin Clarke's classic story of British colonial education is the subject of Growing Up Stupid Under the Union Jack. It is the story of a boy whose mother struggled against seemingly impossible odds to give her son the best available education. Generations of Barbadians, and West Indians, will identify with young Austin Clarke, from the absentee father to the challenges of a daily life in a society based on colour and class prejudice and a rigid set of customs and rules imported from England and imposed on Caribbean society. Growing Up Stupid Under the Union Jack is more than a memoir; it provides a rare in-depth look into the nature of the colonial condition, told with humour, wit and an authentic Bajan voice.

Brittany's richly layered landscape has contributed depth and character to the region's traditional oral culture, from stories of the sea and shore to tales of misty moors, sacred hill-tops and secretive forests. Evangelizing Dark Age saints from Britain laid the foundations of Breton language and society, imposing Christianity on the landscape and in the minds of the people. Their legacy rests visually in the prolific spread of chapels, churches and cathedrals, and the Celtic language still preserved with pride. Right on the edge of Europe, the region has been vulnerable to assault and exploitation. Franks, Vikings, English, Germans have all made their mark, resisted at every turn with resilience. The problematic relationship with neighbouring France before and after Union in 1532 has left wounds to this day. The rapacity of the ancien regime was followed by deprivation of privileges during the Revolution, attacks on religion and subsequent suppression of the Breton language which struck at the very heart of Brittany. The nineteenth century combined economic stagnation with growing interest in Celtic roots, fuelling the search for that ultimate chimera - Breton identity.Historians and poets began to assert the distinct character of the region, while foreign travellers also left accounts of a people speaking an unfathomable language and appearing a race apart. This "primitivism" coupled with the lure of the mysterious megaliths created an image of wild exoticism, and made Brittany a prime target for tourists and artists. Today the past is perpetuated and the future welcomed in a packed festival calendar of Celtic music and Breton culture. Yet for all its modernity, Brittany remains as intensely complex and challenging to preconceived notions as ever. LANDSCAPE AND LEGENDS: Marches of Brittany; Druids and megaliths; St-Malo and sea adventures; mysteries of the Monts d'Arree; Merlin in the Foret de Broceliande. COMPLEXITY AND AMBIGUITY: part of France yet a separate world; nationalism, regionalism, resistance, unity and division of language; four departments or five? WRITERS AND ARTISTS: Chaucer, Balzac, Hugo, Flaubert, Ernest Renan, Thomas Adolphus Trollope, Arthur de la Borderie, Mathurin Meheut, Max Jacob, Yves Tanguy.

Miranda's silver shoes are magic. Individually they are old and worn, half falling to bits, but when they are brought together they sparkle and shimmer like new, vibrating with energy. When she puts them on, anything is possible. They transport her to a land of dragons and trolls, to the door of The Great Magician himself.