Er­line An­drews

Late Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Hec­tor Mc­Clean and his wife Rose­marie were avid read­ers. They passed down a love for read­ing and lit­er­a­ture to their chil­dren, Bernard and Danielle.

"I'm stand­ing in our study here at home, and I'm look­ing at the va­ri­ety of lit­er­a­ture here," said Danielle Mc­Clean dur­ing a phone in­ter­view. "They read to us," she said of her par­ents. "They ex­posed us to dif­fer­ent works, dif­fer­ent gen­res, things from dif­fer­ent cul­tures." Mc­Clean, who re­sides in Ten­nessee, was in Trinidad re­cent­ly to launch her first book, a chil­dren's ad­ven­ture based in the Caribbean called The Pro­tec­tor's Pledge. She fought back tears as she re­called her fa­ther's in­flu­ence on her life and the book.

"He be­lieved that I could do any­thing, whether I be­lieved it or not," said Mc­Clean. "The way he ap­proached things was very me­thod­i­cal and thor­ough. I think that those qual­i­ties that he had are things that he in­stilled in me and my broth­er."

Mc­Clean, a free­lance in­ter­preter with ter­tiary qual­i­fi­ca­tions in Span­ish, French and law, thinks her dad would have sup­port­ed her writ­ing a chil­dren's book whole­heart­ed­ly. He loved chil­dren and was a bene­fac­tor of St Mary's Chil­dren's Home or­phan­age. It was one of many facts peo­ple might not know about the late Speak­er, who held that po­si­tion be­tween 1995 and 2001. An at­tor­ney, he served as a judge in the In­dus­tri­al Court in the ear­ly 80s. Be­fore that he had been an MP and Cab­i­net min­is­ter. He died a decade ago at age 64.

"A lot of peo­ple know him as Speak­er of the House, and they would see one side of him, but ob­vi­ous­ly as fam­i­ly we knew that he loved mu­sic, he loved singing, he loved the arts as well," said Mc­Clean.

She want­ed to do the book as a way of keep­ing T&T's folk­lore alive for chil­dren who lived away from the is­lands–like her five-year-old daugh­ter and two-year-old son–and those who live here but may not be ex­posed to it. The book in­cludes a glos­sary with words and ex­pres­sions such as "catch a vapse" and "douens."

"When I was young I loved sto­ries about folk­lore char­ac­ters," said Mc­Clean. "I just had this urge that I need­ed to write some­thing that can get these chil­dren pas­sion­ate about Pa­pa Bois and Ma­ma Dlo." T&T's folk­lore char­ac­ters, said Mc­Clean, "are just as in­trigu­ing and just as deep and rich and colour­ful–even more so–as zom­bies and were­wolves."

The Pro­tec­tor's Pledge is about JV, a 12-year-old boy who lives with his grand­moth­er in a small vil­lage called Al­ca­vere. Mc­Clean pub­lished it her­self through Ama­zon.com's Cre­ate­Space ser­vice, which al­lows au­thors to print and sell on de­mand. The writ­ing in The Pro­tec­tor's Pledge is vivid and crisp as it ex­plores the young pro­tag­o­nist's in­ter­nal world and fan­tas­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ences. At the book's launch at the Port-of-Spain li­brary, re­spect­ed chil­dren's au­thor Mer­le Hodge and sto­ry­teller Paul Keens-Dou­glas, two of Mc­Clean's he­roes, were in at­ten­dance. Hodge gave a speech in which she cri­tiqued Mc­Clean's work and of­fered ad­vice to the younger au­thor. "I was over the moon," said Mc­Clean of Keens-Dou­glas's and Hodge's par­tic­i­pa­tion. "I was like a child, hon­est­ly." Mc­Clean said she in­tends for The Pro­tec­tor's Pledge to be the first in a three-part se­ries called The Se­crets of Os­curos.

EX­CERPT FROM PRO­TEC­TOR'S PLEDGE

So giv­en his long his­to­ry with the for­est, how was it that he'd nev­er gone ex­plor­ing on his own? Granny B wouldn't have mind­ed, and he wasn't afraid of the ever-shift­ing shad­ows or in­tim­i­dat­ed by the way the Caribbean sun nev­er ful­ly reached the for­est floor. And he cer­tain­ly didn't be­lieve all those sto­ries about the for­est be­ing a haven for the soucouyant–an old crone who shed her skin at night, turned in­to a ball of fire, and drank hu­man blood–or that it was home to the shape-shift­ing la­ga­hoo who prowled dur­ing the dark hours, al­ways ready to sink his fangs in­to his next vic­tim. Nope! Those tall tales were for ba­bies, and JV was 12, af­ter all. A 12-year-old who was crav­ing an ad­ven­ture of his own. Yes, it was def­i­nite­ly time to em­bark on a quest.

MORE IN­FO

The Pro­tec­tor's Pledge is avail­able at Char­ran's book­stores in Trinci­ty Mall and San Juan, and Ama­zon.com, which of­fers an e-book ver­sion.

www.daniellem­c­clean.com