IRA MATH­UR

At just eight years old, Amayah Wal­lace-Aniebonam is al­ready mak­ing a mark in chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture. With en­cour­age­ment from her moth­er, Al­isha Wal­lace, what be­gan as a sim­ple school as­sign­ment has evolved in­to her de­but book, The Quest for the Gold­en Di­a­mond, a sto­ry filled with ad­ven­ture, friend­ship, and courage which takes young read­ers on an ex­cit­ing ad­ven­ture through the Night­mare Jun­gle.

The sto­ry fol­lows Amayah and her friends as they nav­i­gate mys­te­ri­ous ter­rain filled with mag­i­cal por­tals, sur­pris­ing trans­for­ma­tions, and un­ex­pect­ed al­lies. Along their jour­ney to find the leg­endary gold­en di­a­mond, the group en­coun­ters chal­lenges that test their courage, friend­ship, and kind­ness.

This ad­ven­tur­ous tale com­bines ex­cite­ment with heart-warm­ing mo­ments, mak­ing it an en­gag­ing read for chil­dren. Amayah’s jour­ney is part of a grow­ing trend where young writ­ers are step­ping in­to the lit­er­ary spot­light, show­ing the world that cre­ativ­i­ty knows no age lim­its.

Amayah’s lit­er­ary ad­ven­ture be­gan at age sev­en when she start­ed her Face­book page and YouTube chan­nel, Read­ing with Amayah. Through these plat­forms, she de­light­ed her fol­low­ers by bring­ing sto­ries to life—par­tic­u­lar­ly those from her home­land of T&T.

Dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, her pas­sion for sto­ry­telling in­ten­si­fied, lead­ing her to host 18 episodes in Sea­son 1 and five in Sea­son 2 of her show.

But read­ing wasn’t enough for Amayah; she want­ed to write sto­ries. A sim­ple cre­ative writ­ing as­sign­ment grew in­to a full-fledged book that show­cased her vivid imag­i­na­tion and love for ad­ven­ture. Amayah’s re­sponse is re­fresh­ing­ly can­did when asked about her writ­ing: “It’s not that I like writ­ing. I hap­pened to write a good sto­ry for home­work, and my mum­my asked if I want­ed it as a book.”

But while writ­ing may not yet be her pri­ma­ry pas­sion, Amayah has an un­de­ni­able tal­ent for sto­ry­telling, which she us­es to cre­ate worlds that in­vite young read­ers in­to new ad­ven­tures. Her work re­minds us that sto­ry­telling is a pow­er­ful tool for con­nec­tion, no mat­ter the sto­ry­teller’s age.

By em­brac­ing her cre­ativ­i­ty and shar­ing her unique per­spec­tive, Amayah in­spires oth­er young read­ers to see them­selves as writ­ers and cre­ators. Amayah shared her thoughts on writ­ing, read­ing, and what makes her hap­pi­est.

Why do you like writ­ing?

“It’s not that I like writ­ing. I hap­pened to write a good sto­ry for home­work, and my mum­my asked if I want­ed it as a book.”

Why do you like read­ing?

“Read­ing is fun. It’s like be­ing tele­port­ed in­to a dif­fer­ent world. I learn a lot from read­ing.”

What are your favourite books?

“I read dif­fer­ent books—facts, fic­tion, comics.”

Who are your favourite char­ac­ters in books you’ve read?

“I like Per­cy from Per­cy Jack­son and the Bat­tle of the Labyrinth. I like Ja­da from The Ad­ven­tures of Ja­da. From my book, I like Amiy­nah, Abri­ana, Maleah, my mum­my, my un­cle, and my­self.”

What are your hob­bies?

“I love to dance, do arts and crafts, and fash­ion de­sign. I like to try many dif­fer­ent things. I en­tered the Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­pe­ti­tion this year and was the East Zone win­ner. I’ve done gym­nas­tics and swim­ming. I did bal­let and con­tem­po­rary dance. Now I’m in hip-hop and Afrobeat dance class.”

Do you plan to be a writer when you grow up?

“No. I plan to be a po­lice of­fi­cer, chef, pi­lot, fash­ion de­sign­er, and teacher.”

What do you do when you’re hap­py?

“I sing and dance.”

What do you do when you’re sad?

“I hug my mum­my. Some­times, I take some alone time.”

De­scribe the best day of your life and the worst day of your life.

“I don’t re­al­ly have a best day or a worst day. I have bet­ter days and not-so-good days. Gen­er­al­ly, my bet­ter days are those spent do­ing fun ac­tiv­i­ties with my fam­i­ly, like go­ing to the beach, Five Is­lands, mud vol­cano, cin­e­ma, etc. I’m from a hot-foot­ed fam­i­ly. I don’t like days when I see oth­er peo­ple be­ing mean to each oth­er.”

This lit­tle in­ter­view re­veals a child with a big imag­i­na­tion, a moral com­pass, and an open heart who is deeply in tune with her­self. She can ex­press her feel­ings and in­spire and com­fort oth­ers.

Writ­ing is just one of many in­ter­ests for Amayah, a child of bound­less cu­rios­i­ty. She loves danc­ing, arts and crafts, and fash­ion de­sign. In 2023, she com­pet­ed in the Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so Monarch and won the East Zone ti­tle. From bal­let and gym­nas­tics to hip-hop and Afrobeat dance, Amayah’s cre­ative pur­suits are as var­ied as her dreams, which in­clude be­com­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer, chef, pi­lot, fash­ion de­sign­er, and teacher.

Her en­thu­si­asm re­flects a sup­port­ive en­vi­ron­ment where she’s en­cour­aged to ex­plore and be what­ev­er she wants. Amayah’s jour­ney as a young au­thor is just be­gin­ning, and with her bound­less imag­i­na­tion and cu­rios­i­ty, there’s no telling where it will take her. Whether she con­tin­ues writ­ing or ex­plores one of her many oth­er in­ter­ests, Amayah has al­ready shown that she has the tal­ent and de­ter­mi­na­tion to suc­ceed in what­ev­er she choos­es to do. Amayah’s jour­ney re­flects a larg­er move­ment of young peo­ple em­brac­ing the pow­er of sto­ry­telling. Ex­perts agree that read­ing and writ­ing at a young age are cru­cial for aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess and per­son­al de­vel­op­ment.

As renowned chil­dren’s au­thor Roald Dahl once said, “The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

Read­ing and writ­ing help chil­dren de­vel­op em­pa­thy, crit­i­cal think­ing, and cre­ativ­i­ty—skills es­sen­tial for un­der­stand­ing and con­nect­ing with the world.

Psy­chol­o­gist Dr John Hut­ton of Cincin­nati Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal em­pha­sis­es that “writ­ing helps kids de­vel­op their ex­ec­u­tive func­tion—their abil­i­ty to plan, or­gan­ise, and com­plete tasks—which is key to suc­cess in school and life.”

Writ­ing al­lows chil­dren to ex­press them­selves and ex­plore their imag­i­na­tions while read­ing broad­ens their per­spec­tive by al­low­ing them to ex­pe­ri­ence the world through oth­ers’ eyes.

As chil­dren’s au­thor Kate DiCamil­lo has said, “Read­ing should not be pre­sent­ed to chil­dren as a chore or du­ty. It should be of­fered as a pre­cious gift.”

En­cour­ag­ing young writ­ers like Amayah al­so boosts self-con­fi­dence and fos­ters a love of learn­ing. When chil­dren see their words come to life in sto­ries, they re­alise that their voic­es mat­ter. This em­pow­er­ment can be life-chang­ing.

By al­low­ing young peo­ple to tell their sto­ries, we help them de­vel­op a stronger sense of iden­ti­ty and agency.

Amayah is part of a grow­ing wave of young au­thors mak­ing their voic­es heard in the lit­er­ary world.

One no­table ex­am­ple is Anaya Lee Will­abus, who pub­lished her first book, The Day Mo­han Found His Con­fi­dence, at eight. Anaya’s sto­ry high­lights themes of per­se­ver­ance and self-be­lief, which res­onate deeply with read­ers of all ages.

An­oth­er young au­thor, Za­yn Ali Salman, wrote Lit­tle Li­on’s Big Roar at just ten years old. His book ex­plores themes of courage and friend­ship, show­cas­ing the fresh per­spec­tive that young writ­ers bring to sto­ry­telling.

Amayah will un­doubt­ed­ly in­spire oth­ers to fol­low in her foot­steps as she con­tin­ues to grow, prov­ing that the world of chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture is rich­er for hav­ing young voic­es like hers.

In the words of J K Rowl­ing, “There’s al­ways room for a sto­ry that can trans­port peo­ple to an­oth­er place.”

Amayah Wal­lace-Aniebonam’s sto­ries re­mind us of the mag­ic of a child’s imag­i­na­tion.

Ira Math­ur is a Guardian Me­dia jour­nal­ist and the win­ner of the 2023 OCM Bo­cas Prize for Non-Fic­tion for her mem­oir, Love The Dark Days. Web­site: www.iras­room.org