Shal­iza Has­sanali

In 2008, African-Amer­i­can au­thor Ken­neth E Pol­lock cap­tured the hearts of thou­sands in the USA with his short sto­ry book en­ti­tled Phi­los­o­phy of Life which fo­cus­es on teach­ing good moral and eth­i­cal val­ues in chil­dren. Now Pol­lock has stepped out­side the realm of the USA and in­to the arms of T&T, hop­ing that his book will help chil­dren be­come re­spon­si­ble and pro­duc­tive mem­bers in trou­bled com­mu­ni­ties. Born in St Kitts, the sis­ter isle of Nevis in the Caribbean, Pol­lock penned Phi­los­o­phy of Life to teach chil­dren, through the ex­pe­ri­ence of the hu­man and an­i­mal char­ac­ters, how to use their col­lec­tive in­sight and wis­dom to al­ways do what is right.

"Chil­dren are ex­posed to var­i­ous every­day sit­u­a­tions and should be taught how to re­spond in a pos­i­tive man­ner, even when it means sac­ri­fic­ing their pride in or­der to ac­com­plish that goal," said Pol­lock. "There is a lost gen­er­a­tion out there who we need to help," said Pol­lock. The third edi­tion of the soft-cov­er book was pub­lished by Isis Pub­lish­ing House Ltd, New York City, in 2008. The first in a set of three vol­umes, the book, which caters for chil­dren ages eight to 12, was en­dorsed by Er­i­ca Williams-Con­nell, the daugh­ter of the late Prime Min­is­ter of T&T Dr Er­ic Williams.

Hav­ing re­ceived ac­claim from peo­ple of var­i­ous walks of life, the 77-page book con­sists of 24 sto­ries, each end­ing with an ap­pro­pri­ate trea­sured moral and equipped with an il­lus­tra­tion by Williard Whit­lock. The book teach­es chil­dren that to every ac­tion there is a re­ac­tion–some neg­a­tive, oth­ers pos­i­tive. Pol­lock is root­ed in the be­lief that ed­u­ca­tion is the most ef­fec­tive way to trans­form lives. "This book rep­re­sents a pow­er­ful tool for ed­u­cat­ing our chil­dren and help­ing them to bring val­ues and at­ti­tudes that we need to see in our world," he be­lieves.

Its con­tent is ex­tra­or­di­nar­i­ly aca­d­e­m­ic, philo­soph­i­cal and street­wise in na­ture. Those who have pur­chased the book for their chil­dren sug­gest­ed that it be used in church­es, schools and pub­lic li­braries and homes. The book can be pur­chased for un­der $100 at RIK, Met­ro­pol­i­tan and Khan's book­stores.

About Pol­lock

Ken­neth E Pol­lock is a mo­ti­va­tion­al speak­er, hu­man­i­tar­i­an and suc­cess­ful en­tre­pre­neur who holds among his many con­cerns the di­rec­tion of the youths of the world. He is al­so an ad­vo­cate for the home­less, vic­tims of Aids and un­doc­u­ment­ed res­i­dents of the USA.

As a free­lance writer Pol­lock has con­tributed to var­i­ous news­pa­pers and mag­a­zine ar­ti­cles on so­cial is­sues that im­pact the lives of African-Amer­i­cans. Many of his ac­tiv­i­ties have been fea­tured in the New York Dai­ly News, New York News­day, Carib News, Class Mag­a­zine, Every­body's Mag­a­zine and The Dai­ly Chal­lenge.

An avid read­er, as il­lus­trat­ed by this book, Pol­lock is a stu­dent of Ae­sop, the mas­ter of fa­bles. Pol­lock, who em­i­grat­ed to the US in 1967 and is a US Army/Viet­nam era vet­er­an, re­sides in New York City with his wife, Yvonne Humphrey Pol­lock. He is the fa­ther of two sons, and two daugh­ters from a pre­vi­ous mar­riage.