The first chap­ter of the NGC Chil­dren’s Bo­cas Lit Fest be­gan at City Hall, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, as sev­er­al schools en­ter­tained with live read­ings, po­et­ry, and sing-alongs.

Eight-year-old Coryn Anaya Clarke, who is the youngest pub­lished writer in T&T, host­ed the event while al­so read­ing from a book which is part of her chil­dren’s se­ries, Chron­i­cles of Coryn: Meet My He­roes, in which she de­scribes what she likes about lo­cal trail­blaz­ers, in­clud­ing David Rud­der and Nailah Black­man.

“Bri­an Charles Lara is one of he­roes be­cause he shares my pas­sion for crick­et, ac­tu­al­ly he in­spired my love for crick­et. David Rud­der is one of the best ca­lyp­so­ni­ans in the world—don’t ar­gue with me, that’s my opin­ion. He is one of my mu­si­cal he­roes,” Clarke said.

Au­thor Mary Cuffy al­so read from her book, Road Trip Ad­ven­ture with Lo­la & Daw­son. Stu­dents were en­gaged to sing along to what was read.

But it was when the Dame Lor­raine came out, that the chil­dren be­gan to laugh, with some heard say­ing, “Oh, Je­sus!” and “Ey ey!”

The char­ac­ter was played by Gen­nalee Grif­fith, a pupil of St Gabriel’s Girls’ RC School, who did a ren­di­tion of her NGC San­fest win­ning speech, The French and Span­ish In­flu­ence In Trinidad and To­ba­go.

How­ev­er, the hap­py ex­pres­sions of the chil­dren on see­ing some­one their age play­ing the Trin­bag­on­ian folk­lore char­ac­ter turned se­ri­ous, when the som­bre top­ic of slav­ery came to the fore­front.

“Oh gosh, al­lyuh, it’s me! And look how I make my­self pret­ty. I is Dame Lor­raine. I am the epit­o­me of slav­ery. When we used to like to mock them French aris­to­crats, oh gosh, look at me, so beau­ti­ful with meh broad hat. I like to ex­ag­ger­ate my fea­tures and my dress ‘cuz when I step out in the back­yard, I does fete fuh so!” Grif­fith said on stage.

The NGC Chil­dren’s Bo­cas Lit Fest in­cludes work­shops, live read­ings and oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties for the na­tion’s youth and runs un­til Sun­day.