Gypsy, Roma Traveller

A selection of titles promoted to celebrate Gypsy, Roma and Traveller history month.

Fiction and non-fiction books for adult readers, and also several childrens' picture books by Richard O'Neill.

Browse our collection of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller related eAudio and eBooks at this link: Kirklees Libraries' eAudio and eBook collection

Updated May 20, 2024
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Seasoned Traveller, Dominic Reeve, writer of many acclaimed books on the Travellers' way of life - as it is, not romanticised - here tells us of the period when Travellers were more or less universally changing from the horse drawn waggon to the age of the lorry and trailer (caravan). The book has...
The Stopping Places: A Journey Through Gypsy Britain
Bas, Damian Le
'I needed to get to the stopping places, so I needed to get on the road. It was the road where I might at last find out where I belonged.' Damian Le Bas grew up surrounded by Gypsy history. His great-grandmother would tell him stories of her childhood in the ancient Romani...
Romano Lavo-Lil: A Book of the Gypsy
Borrow, George Henry
Gypsies : an English history
Cressy, David
Gypsies, Egyptians, Romanies, and - more recently - Travellers. Who are this marginal and mysterious people who first arrived in England in early Tudor times? Are tales of their distant origins on the Indian subcontinent true, or just another of the many myths and stories that have accreted around...
Tales of the old gypsies
Davies, Jennifer.
Jack and his wife Gevoner tell of their travels, as do many other gypsies: Eli Frankham, boxer, gypsy spokesman and musician; Fred Stephenson, breeder of lurchers; and the Coulsons of County Durham, scrap and coal merchants.
Gypsy Empire
Dillon, Eamon
Irish Travellers have never enjoyed a higher profile, at home and abroad, for good reasons and bad. On the one hand are the positive stories like the success of boxers such as John Joe Nevin and Tyson Fury, the popularity of Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and Paddy Doherty's victory on Celebrity...
Django Reinhardt and the illustrated history of gypsy jazz
Dregni, Michael
Django Reinhardt was perhaps the greatest guitarist to ever live. A Gypsy who made his jazz guitar speak with a human voice, he was dashing, charismatic, childish . . . and doomed to die young after creating a legacy of Gypsy Jazz that remains vibrant today. Gypsy Jazz is a music both joyous and sad...
Water gypsies : a history of life on Britain's rivers and canals
Dutton, Julian
For centuries, living afloat on Britain's waterways has been a rich part of the fabric of our social history, from the fisherfolk of ancient Britain to the bohemian houseboat dwellers of the 1950s and beyond. Whether they have chosen to leave the land behind and take to the water or...
My ancestors were gypsies
Floate, Sharon Sillers.
Bury me standing : the Gypsies and their journey
Fonseca, Isabel.
Gypsies have always intrigued and fascinated - partly because of their mysterious origins, and partly because of the romance of nomadism. But because they resist assimilation, having survived as a distinct people for over a thousand years, they have also been the victims of other people's...
Yorkshire Gypsy Fairs, Customs and Caravans, 1885-1985
Jones, Alan E.
The destiny of Europe's gypsies
Kenrick, Donald.
The Romani world : a historical dictionary of the the gypsies
Kenrick, Donald.
A desktop reference guide to people, countries and subjects in the Romani world, including a detailed chronology of the history of the Romani people.
I met lucky people : the story of the Romani Gypsies
Matras, Yaron
In I Met Lucky People, Yaron Matras, the world's leading authority on the Romani, explains why we need to reconsider how we view their culture Who are the Romani people? As one of the last remaining societies in the Western hemisphere with a strictly oral culture, they have no written...
Gypsy girl
McKinley, Rosie.
Imagine being born into a world where communities are constantly on the move, but freedom is not a birthright. Rosie grew up travelling all over England and Ireland in her family's caravan. She had an idyllic childhood roaming fields and meadows with her younger brothers and...
Gaining Ground: Law Reform for Gypsies and Travellers
Morris, Rachel
The publication of the Macpherson Report on the Stephen Lawrence case shows that racism in the UK is still a major problem for many communities. Although often overlooked, the prejudice and discrimination experienced by Gypsies and Travellers is in some ways worse because of its seeming...
Polonius the Pit Pony
O'Neill, Richard
When Polonius the pit pony escapes from the coal mine he's worked in all his life, he joins a family of Travellers. Although he enjoys the freedom and the fresh air that their lifestyle offers, he wishes he could give something back to the family in return.When the chance arrives for him to do...
The lost homework
O'Neill, Richard (Storyteller)
In this new addition to our 'Travellers' Tales' series, Sonny devotes his weekend to helping his neighbours and fellow Travellers with a variety of tasks. He uses many skills, from calculating the amount of fuel needed for a journey, to restoring a caravan. In fact, the only thing he doesn't do over...
The can caravan
O'Neill, Richard, (Storyteller)
When Janie's neighbour Mrs Tolen goes into hospital with a broken hip, it looks as though she will have to move out of her old caravan and into a house. Janie is desperate to help, but all seems lost until her school visits a local recycling plant. All it takes from there is imagination, a...
Ossiri and the Bala Mengro
O'Neill, Richard.
A Traveller girl creates her own musical instrument from a willow branch and lots of recycled objects. She plays it enthusiastically, but it sounds terrible! Ignoring warnings not to awaken the ogre in the hills, Ossiri goes there to practise playing her instrument. Will she wake the ogre, and will...
Yokki and the Parno Gry
O'Neill, Richard.
When a Traveller family experiences a run of bad luck, an imaginative boy called Yokki lifts their spirits with tales of a magical white horse. A traditional Traveller-family folk tale which inspires hope and celebrates creativity. Told by a Romani storyteller together with a picture book author to...
Smoke in the Lanes
Reeve, Dominic
In the 1950s the Romani people lived on the brink of great change. In their bright wooden wagons they journeyed between horse-fairs and traditional stopping places - stoic, humorous and wild, often poverty-stricken but protective of their freedom - on the fringes of a society that was soon to close...
A Gypsy in Auschwitz: How I Survived the Horrors of the 'Forgotten Holocaust'
Rosenberg, Otto
A unique and deeply affecting memoir of a child's survival in the Roma and Sinti holocaust Otto Rosenberg is 9 and living in Berlin, poor but happy, when his family are first detained. All around them, Sinti and Roma families are being torn from their homes by Nazis...
Cushty : a Romany life
Smith, Joe
First published to critical acclaim as Gypsy Joe, with The Observer selecting it as Sports Book Of The Year, Cushty is a revised and expanded edition. Encouraged as a child to reject the gypsy tradition of fighting and take up golf, Joe rose through the ranks of the professional sport. However,...
Rabbit stew and a penny or two
Smith-Bendell, Maggie
Born on a Somerset pea-field in 1941, the second of eight children in a Romani family, Maggie Smith-Bendell has lived through the years of greatest change in the travelling community's long history. As a child, Maggie rode and slept in a horse-drawn wagon, picked hops and flowers, and sat beside...
Shared sorrows : a gypsy family remembers the Holocaust
Sonneman, Toby F.
On the morning after Kristallnacht, Toby Sonneman’s father walked through broken glass to apply for the visa that saved him from the fate of so many during the Third Reich. In examining her own family history, the author discovered the similarities between the fate of the Jews and...
Gypsy boy
Walsh, Mikey.
'It was a revelation. Moving, terrifying, funny and brilliant. I shall never forget it - an amazing achievement' STEPHEN FRY 'Brash and frightening and funny' NEW YORK TIMES * * * * * * The Sunday Times...
Gypsy boy on the run
Walsh, Mikey.
The incredible sequel to GYPSY BOY GYPSY BOY: ON THE RUN picks up from where GYPSY BOY left off, and tells the gripping, page-turning story of Mikey's battle to escape the Romany gypsy camp he grew up on. After centuries of persecution Gypsies are wary of...
This Time Next Year We'll Be Laughing
Winspear, Jacqueline
A 2021 Edgar Award Nominee for Best Critical/Biographical "Jacqueline Winspear has created a memoir of her English childhood that is every bit as engaging as her Maisie Dobbs novels, just as rich in character and detail, history and humanity. Her writing is lovely, elegant and...
The gypsy code : the true story of a violent game of hide and seek at the fringes of society
Woodhouse, Mike
Mike Woodhouse had everything- an engineering business, a wine bar, a home, a Range Rover and a boat. Then he caught a group of travellers stealing from his warehouse. A car chase, petrol bombing and court case later, and everything had changed. A marked man, Mike was forced to leave...

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