Mary Cuffy

As Read Caribbean Month comes to a close, a re­mark­able lega­cy is just be­gin­ning. What start­ed as a stan­dard group pre­sen­ta­tion for a group of lo­cal stu­dents has blos­somed in­to an in­spir­ing jour­ney to be­come pub­lished au­thors.

Spurred on by an en­cour­ag­ing teacher, the stu­dents were ini­tial­ly tasked with a sim­ple class project. How­ev­er, the as­sign­ment took a pro­found turn when the stu­dents be­gan to ask them­selves a ques­tion: What kind of sto­ries can we cre­ate to tru­ly ex­cite and en­gage preschool­ers in our own com­mu­ni­ty?

That sin­gle ques­tion shift­ed the tra­jec­to­ry of their project from a class­room pre­sen­ta­tion to the cre­ation of three orig­i­nal chil­dren’s books, cur­rent­ly mak­ing their way through the pub­lish­ing process.

The young writ­ers have craft­ed tales that are not on­ly en­ter­tain­ing but al­so car­ry mean­ing­ful mes­sages for ear­ly read­ers. The col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort re­sult­ed in three dis­tinct sto­ries, each co-au­thored by dy­nam­ic stu­dent du­os:

Samaria Hills and Cha­ian Balkissoon in­tro­duce young read­ers to Co­co the Colour-Chang­ing Chameleon. In this vi­brant tale, Co­co loves play­ing hide-and-seek and ex­pert­ly changes his colours, green, red, brown and blue, to blend in­to his sur­round­ings. How­ev­er, as the day winds down, Co­co grows tired of con­stant­ly shift­ing to please oth­ers. The sto­ry cul­mi­nates in a heart­warm­ing les­son about self-ac­cep­tance, as Co­co re­alis­es that while he loves all his colours, he loves just be­ing him­self most of all.

For Sha­nia Tang and Imara Julien, the fo­cus was on the bound­less pow­er of a child’s mind. Their book, Won­der­land Ad­ven­ture, fol­lows a young girl named Mia who is stuck in her room, feel­ing bored.

But when her ted­dy bear mag­i­cal­ly comes to life, every­thing changes. Through the pow­er of imag­i­na­tion, Mia’s or­di­nary bed­room is trans­formed in­to a spec­tac­u­lar fan­ta­sy land, re­mind­ing young read­ers that ad­ven­ture is nev­er far away if you know where to look.

Mean­while, Ma­ia-Rose We­st­on and Sali­na Baksh tack­le themes of friend­ship, di­ver­si­ty and prob­lem-solv­ing in The Shar­ing Tree. The sto­ry fol­lows four unique­ly dif­fer­ent friends who are on their way to have fun when they stum­ble up­on a beau­ti­ful man­go tree, a fa­mil­iar and beloved sight across the Caribbean.

How­ev­er, there is a prob­lem: the lus­cious man­goes are just out of reach for one of the friends who us­es a wheel­chair. The chil­dren must put their heads to­geth­er and work as a team to en­sure every­one gets to en­joy the sweet fruit.

The tran­si­tion from stu­dents to pub­lished au­thors is a tes­ta­ment to what hap­pens when ed­u­ca­tion goes be­yond the text­book. By turn­ing a class as­sign­ment in­to a tan­gi­ble re­source for lo­cal preschool­ers, these stu­dents are en­sur­ing that the spir­it of Caribbean Her­itage Month, cel­e­brat­ing com­mu­ni­ty, cul­ture and lift­ing up the next gen­er­a­tion, lives on well past the end of June.

As these three sto­ries move to the next lev­el of pub­li­ca­tion, the com­mu­ni­ty ea­ger­ly awaits the chance to read the works of its young au­thors, prov­ing that you are nev­er too young to be a sto­ry­teller.

Mary Cuffy is an ed­u­ca­tor and lo­cal chil­dren’s au­thor of the La­dy­bug se­ries. Cuffy be­lieves the best in­vest­ment we can make in chil­dren is in the ear­ly years. Email mary.cuff@ya­hoo.com . IG:marycuffy . FB: mary cuffy/Lo­la and the Danc­ing La­dy­bug