Rishi Ra­goonath

On Sat­ur­day night, The En­chant­ed Book­shop leapt off the page and on­to the stage at Na­pari­ma Bowl in San Fer­nan­do, in a mag­i­cal pro­duc­tion pre­sent­ed by the Na­tive Caribbean Foun­da­tion, found­ed by Mar­lon and Jenif­fer Es­pinoza.

This de­light­ful sto­ry cel­e­brates the pow­er of read­ing and re­minds us how books can spark imag­i­na­tion, in­spire cre­ativ­i­ty, and whisk chil­dren away on un­for­get­table ad­ven­tures—pulling them away from phones and tablets in the process.

At the heart of the tale is the won­der­ful­ly ec­cen­tric “Crazy Head” Margie, who runs a charm­ing lit­tle book­store strug­gling to stay afloat. She’s un­aware that af­ter dark, en­chant­ment fills the aisles as the char­ac­ters from her beloved books spring to life, bring­ing whim­sy, mis­chief, and heart in­to the shop.

The char­ac­ters—Dorothy Gale, Robin Hood, Pollyan­na, Sher­lock Holmes, Hei­di, Tom Sawyer, the Wicked Witch of the West, Tin­ker­bell, the Book Fairy, the Queen of Hearts, Long John Sil­ver, Dr Dolit­tle, An­nie, the La­dy in Red, and Drac­u­la—band to­geth­er to save the book­store when two ban­dits come search­ing for a stolen neck­lace hid­den in­side one of the books. In do­ing so, they risk be­ing seen by hu­mans, which would make them dis­ap­pear for­ev­er.

One of the play’s most touch­ing mo­ments high­lights the im­por­tance of car­ing for books, as the char­ac­ters re­act emo­tion­al­ly to the rough han­dling and dam­age in­flict­ed dur­ing the rob­bery scene—an in­ven­tive and ef­fec­tive way to teach young read­ers re­spect for sto­ries and the worlds they con­tain.

Fun­ny, fast-paced, and brim­ming with en­er­gy, the pro­duc­tion kept the au­di­ence en­thralled from start to fin­ish. The live­ly per­for­mances and strong vo­cals of the en­sem­ble cast brought the whim­si­cal sto­ry­line to life in a way that res­onat­ed with both chil­dren and adults.

The young and tal­ent­ed cast fea­tured stu­dents from schools across the coun­try, in­clud­ing St Joseph’s Con­vent, AS­JA Girls’ Col­lege, San Juan North Sec­ondary, Ari­ma North Sec­ondary, San Fer­nan­do Cen­tral Sec­ondary, Fyz­abad An­gli­can Sec­ondary, Point Fortin East and West Sec­ondary, Pleas­antville Sec­ondary, Holy Faith Con­vent, St Charles High School, Mara­bel­la South Sec­ondary, Cipero RC Pri­ma­ry, Robert Vil­lage Hin­du School, Na­pari­ma Girls’ High School and True Bridge Tu­tor­ing.

The play was di­rect­ed by Ar­ne­tia Thomas, with mu­si­cal di­rec­tor Christo­pher Sookoo and chore­o­g­ra­ph­er Stephen Prince.