Ja­maican-Cana­di­an sto­ry­teller Janet Camp­bell launched her first pub­li­ca­tion, the chil­dren's book Kafiya Meets the Moon, on March 27, at Nalis, Port-of-Spain.

Pub­lished by Mas­cot Books in 2012, Kafiya Meets the Moon tells the sto­ry of a young girl, Kafiya, who is fas­ci­nat­ed with the moon. In­formed by her Grand­ma Et­ta and Aun­tie Yaya that the moon pos­sess­es the same fa­cial fea­tures as her, Kafiya is de­ter­mined to see this for her­self.

Kafiya and the Moon is de­scribed on the au­thor's Web site as a sto­ry to "warm every par­ent's heart while in­spir­ing their sons and daugh­ters to be­lieve in the im­pos­si­ble."

Vet­er­an sto­ry­teller Theodo­ra Ulerie, al­so known as "Aun­tie Thea", ad­dressed the well-at­tend­ed gath­er­ing, which in­clud­ed sev­er­al young read­ers, ac­com­pa­nied by their par­ents and guardians. Al­so present was writer and vi­su­al artist Va­lerie Bel­grave, au­thor of the his­tor­i­cal nov­el Ti Marie and il­lus­tra­tor of Ad­ven­tures of the Mag­ic Steel­pan, a book for chil­dren.

Ulerie, an in-house sto­ry­teller at the Na­tion­al Li­brary at Port-of-Spain, praised Camp­bell's book as a vi­tal, out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion to tales told for young peo­ple.

De­scrib­ing the event as a pres­ti­gious one, Aun­tie Thea rec­om­mend­ed that par­ents read Kafiya Meets the Moon to their chil­dren. She al­so ad­vo­cat­ed the stim­u­la­tion of read­ing for plea­sure as an ac­tive part of a child's lifestyle.

In her re­marks to the au­di­ence, Camp­bell ex­pressed her pas­sion for sto­ry­telling as a writ­ten and oral art form, em­pha­sis­ing the im­por­tance of telling sto­ries aloud. She per­formed a sec­tion of Kafiya Meets the Moon, tak­en from the book's open­ing page. Camp­bell al­so screened a brief an­i­mat­ed clip of a seg­ment of the sto­ry, in which Kafiya has a con­ver­sa­tion with the moon. The en­tire sto­ry has not been set to an­i­ma­tion, the writer ex­plained. How­ev­er, based on the over­whelm­ing­ly pos­i­tive re­sponse from venues where the trail­er has been aired, plans may be set in mo­tion to cre­ate a full-length adap­ta­tion video.

The au­di­ence was treat­ed to a ca­lyp­so per­for­mance en­ti­tled Rob­bery on the Beetham, as well as a po­et­ic ren­di­tion of Ein­tou Pearl Springer's Sur­vivor, by pupils of the New­town Girls' RC School. The pupils were coached un­der the guid­ance of di­rec­tor and ac­tress Pene­lope Spencer, who was al­so present at the event.

This launch marked the au­thor's first of­fi­cial trip to Trinidad, which she said has been met with an over­whelm­ing­ly pos­i­tive re­sponse.

More in­fo

For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion, and to or­der copies of Kafiya Meets the Moon, vis­it the au­thor's Web site, www.janet­camp­bell.ca

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