Mary Cuffy

Greet­ings, young read­ers. I trust that you are find­ing ful­fil­ment in your par­tic­i­pa­tion in the "Book Guardians" ini­tia­tive. May I en­quire how many books you have read to date? If you are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing dif­fi­cul­ties in dis­cov­er­ing the plea­sure of read­ing, al­low me to of­fer you some en­cour­age­ment.

Meet Coryn Anaya Clarke. She was writ­ten in­to her coun­try’s his­to­ry book when she wrote and pub­lished her first book at just four years old. Now nine years old, Coryn has since pub­lished a to­tal of sev­en books in the Chron­i­cles of Coryn se­ries, in­spir­ing chil­dren world­wide with her cre­ativ­i­ty and pas­sion for read­ing.

In ad­di­tion to writ­ing, Coryn found­ed the Chron­i­cles of Coryn Book Club on her sixth birth­day, en­cour­ag­ing chil­dren to do­nate books to help oth­ers ac­cess read­ing ma­te­ri­als. She al­so cre­at­ed a safe space for chil­dren to dis­cuss ideas and ex­plore the world through books.

Coryn was fea­tured in Forbes in 2024 and has host­ed events like the Chron­i­cles of Coryn Chil­dren’s Book Fes­ti­val, pro­mot­ing lit­er­a­cy, cul­tur­al ap­pre­ci­a­tion, and the love of read­ing. She is a mo­ti­va­tion­al speak­er, in­spir­ing chil­dren to use their voic­es and pur­sue their dreams.

Coryn shared her book on Tra­di­tion­al Car­ni­val Char­ac­ters of T&T. It is a beau­ti­ful­ly il­lus­trat­ed, easy-to-read pic­ture book that in­tro­duces chil­dren to the vi­brant world of tra­di­tion­al Car­ni­val char­ac­ters. Through the eyes of young Coryn, read­ers em­bark on an ex­cit­ing jour­ney, dis­cov­er­ing the rich cul­tur­al her­itage of T&T’s Car­ni­val.

From the mis­chie­vous Pier­rot Grenade to the tow­er­ing Moko Jumbie and the fiery Blue Dev­il, each char­ac­ter comes to life with en­gag­ing sto­ry­telling and colour­ful art­work.

Tips to dis­cov­er the plea­sure of read­ing

These tips were gath­ered from var­i­ous on­line sources to help en­cour­age read­ing habits.

* Choose books that gen­uine­ly in­ter­est you–Ex­plore dif­fer­ent gen­res like fic­tion, non-fic­tion, and mys­tery to dis­cov­er what you love to read about.

* Start with easy reads: Be­gin with short­er books or lighter ma­te­r­i­al to ease in­to the habit and avoid feel­ing over­whelmed.

* Grad­u­al­ly build a habit by start­ing with short read­ing ses­sions.

* If you're not en­joy­ing a book, move on to some­thing else.

* Ded­i­cate time to read. Build­ing a read­ing habit takes time, so be con­sis­tent with your read­ing sched­ule.

* Cre­ate a com­fort­able read­ing en­vi­ron­ment where you can fo­cus with­out

dis­trac­tions.

* Con­sid­er join­ing a book club.

* Vis­it your lo­cal book­store or ac­cess your lo­cal li­brary as they of­fer a vast se­lec­tion of books to ex­plore and dis­cov­er new au­thors.

To par­ents, help your chil­dren to mod­el read­ing be­hav­iour:

Demon­strate your own en­joy­ment of read­ing to in­spire your chil­dren.

Mary Cuffy is an ed­u­ca­tor and lo­cal chil­dren’s au­thor. Ms Cuffy is the au­thor of the La­dy­bug book se­ries. Ms Cuffy be­lieves the best in­vest­ment we can make in chil­dren is in the ear­ly years. Email: mary.cuffy@ya­hoo.com • IG: marycuffy • FB: mary cuffy/Lo­la and the Danc­ing La­dy­bug