CHARLES KONG SOO

charles.kong­soo@guardian.co.tt

Coryn Anaya Clarke be­came the youngest pub­lished au­thor in T&T with her first book Chron­i­cles of Coryn: 7 Days of Fun, which was writ­ten and pub­lished in 2020 when she was just four years old.

Abi­gail Joy Bridge­mo­han, sev­en, from, Cunu­pia, is yet an­oth­er young pub­lished au­thor in the coun­try with her book, "Op­er­a­tion Co­op­er­a­tion, Abi­gail’s Guide to Ocean Con­ser­va­tion."

Abi­gail, who was first seen on Face­book with Xtra Foods mar­ket­ing man­ag­er Daniel Austin with her book, said "The book is meant for chil­dren my age, sev­en to ten, so that they can learn about the ocean and why they should not lit­ter."

She be­lieves that if they learn at a young age not to lit­ter, then they can grow up to be re­spon­si­ble and not lit­ter but in­stead take care of their earth.

The young­ster en­cour­ages every­one to read her book, so they can have good en­vi­ron­men­tal prac­tices. "Op­er­a­tion Co­op­er­a­tion is about ocean con­ser­va­tion and a call for every­one to take care of the ocean and the Earth. It’s a sto­ry about a girl named Ariel who vis­it­ed the beach with her fam­i­ly and left a choco­late wrap­per on the sand. This ex­cit­ing sto­ry takes you through the jour­ney of the wrap­per through the ocean and how it in­ter­acts with ma­rine life," Abi­gail said.

Abigail Bridgemohan's book Operation Cooperation, Abigail’s Guide to Ocean Conservation.

She said the book al­so teach­es peo­ple about im­por­tant ma­rine life in the ocean such as corals and par­rot fish which can be en­dan­gered by hu­man ac­tiv­i­ty.

Abi­gail ex­plained that the book al­so men­tions pol­lu­tion and its ef­fects. She im­plored peo­ple to be­come part of Op­er­a­tion Co­op­er­a­tion and en­sure they do not lit­ter but help to clean up the ocean and keep ma­rine life healthy.

When she was three years old, Abi­gail start­ed to learn about the ocean, and she want­ed to be­come a ma­rine bi­ol­o­gist.

She watched many episodes of ‘Oc­to­nauts’, and when she was six years old she de­cid­ed that her first pub­lished book must teach peo­ple about the ocean.

Her sto­ry start­ed one line at a time, and when it turned in­to a fun and ad­ven­tur­ous sto­ry, she loved it so much that she want­ed to share it with oth­ers.

Her 15-year-old cousin Keira, who is very artis­tic, did all the il­lus­tra­tions for ‘Op­er­a­tion Co­op­er­a­tion’; she did an amaz­ing job.

Abi­gail start­ed writ­ing at the age of five and was do­ing class­es with Stan­dards 1 and 2 chil­dren at CTS Col­lege Pri­vate Pri­ma­ry School.

Ms Janet Sankar was her teacher and taught her about the writ­ing process and lit­er­ary de­vices. Abi­gail men­tioned that they did a lot of writ­ing prac­tice, and her teacher told them that they too can write books, giv­ing her the idea of pub­lish­ing her sto­ries.

She has over 12 ex­cit­ing sto­ries to pub­lish that teach chil­dren im­por­tant lessons about shar­ing and not giv­ing up.

Abi­gail's par­ents al­so taught her to im­prove her writ­ing and en­cour­aged her to go af­ter her dream of writ­ing.

Abi­gail loves her Kids' Bible be­cause it teach­es her about her amaz­ing God; She en­joys ‘Ariel the Mer­maid’ be­cause she likes mer­maids and the ocean, plus her sis­ter’s name is al­so Ariel. She al­so likes to read the sto­ry 'Maybe: A Sto­ry About the End­less Po­ten­tial in All of Us' by Ko­bi Ya­ma­da be­cause it tells peo­ple that they can be any­thing they want to be. An­oth­er of her favourite books is ‘Fish­es of the Caribbean’ by Ian F Took be­cause it teach­es her about the many fish­es of the Caribbean. Her favourite fish is the Blue Head Wrasse.

Sisters Ariel, left, and Abigail Bridgemohan at the Maracas lookout.

The young au­thor re­marked that she loves books about the ocean be­cause she con­sid­ers her­self a young ma­rine bi­ol­o­gist as she loves to study and dis­cov­er new fish­es.

Abi­gail wants to be a ma­rine bi­ol­o­gist and au­thor to study about fish­es and write sto­ries about them. Her pet fish­es are named Ro­jo, Azul, Goldilocks and Bub­ble­locks.

The CTS Col­lege Pri­vate Pri­ma­ry School Stan­dard 2 pupil's favourite sub­ject is Cre­ative Writ­ing be­cause she gets more ideas to write more books, which gives her more prac­tice, so she can write even faster.

She likes to use her imag­i­na­tion to make sto­ries, en­joys play­ing Duolin­go to learn oth­er lan­guages and has fun play­ing with her sis­ter and cousins.

Abi­gail is cur­rent­ly learn­ing Span­ish, Hawai­ian and French and al­so likes to watch movies and read books about the ocean.

Her favourite food is her mom­my’s home­made piz­za, but she al­so likes the Hawai­ian piz­za at Piz­za Hut. Her favourite dessert is barfi and she en­joys grapes as her favourite snack be­cause it is a healthy and de­li­cious fruit.

Abi­gail's favourite tele­vi­sion shows are Oc­to­nauts and PJ Masks, her favourite movie is En­can­to and the song she adores is Most High by Ster­ling Roberts.

Abigail Bridgemohan at Maracas Beach.

Rajiv Debie.

Nicholas Bridge­mo­han, Abi­gail's fa­ther, said that he and their daugh­ter's mom, Er­i­ca, re­cent­ly start­ed a YouTube chan­nel for her called ‘Abi­gail’s Joy­ful Ad­ven­tures'.

They en­cour­age her a lot to pur­sue her dreams and nev­er give up.

Bridge­mo­han said Abi­gail was a bril­liant child and can do any­thing she sets her mind to, and they will con­tin­ue to sup­port her as God leads and ac­cord­ing to her dreams.

Er­i­ca de­scribed her daugh­ter as very bright and well-man­nered, she can some­times be shy, but that is over­shad­owed by her ex­cite­ment to in­ter­act with oth­er kids or to share in in­sight­ful con­ver­sa­tions.

She said Abi­gail was al­ways look­ing to learn new things, she was very log­i­cal and from the age of three start­ed do­ing men­tal maths with num­bers in the hun­dreds and thou­sands.

Er­i­ca said Abi­gail ven­tured in­to writ­ing where she eas­i­ly ab­sorbed every­thing she learned in Cre­ative Writ­ing and was able to suc­cess­ful­ly ap­ply it to writ­ing her own orig­i­nal sto­ries.

Abigail Bridgemohan reading at Salibia Beach with Xtra Foods Supermarket on International Coastal Clean Up Day.

The fam­i­ly is very grate­ful for the sup­port from her spon­sors, Xtra Foods, ABC Pae­di­atrics and CTS Col­lege.

Er­i­ca said Abi­gail was very in­ten­tion­al and gives every­thing 100 per cent, and she is in­spired by her am­bi­tion.

The par­ents en­sure that Abi­gail has a bal­anced life. She loves telling jokes and laughs a lot.

She al­so loves fam­i­ly time, watch­ing shows about Japan with her dad, rid­ing her bi­cy­cle and ex­plor­ing na­ture.