Story and Photos by Sarai Andrews
On Saturday 16th of November, Bocas Lit Fest in partnership with Let’s Read, hosted the final Family Reading Circle of the year. The read aloud session that took place at the recently opened Sleepy Cat Cafe on 14 Alcazar Street gave life to storytelling to set a foundation for a lifelong love of reading.
This being the final Family reading Circle for the year, Bocas Lit Fest brought out all the stops. Attendees were treated to read aloud sessions by writers Hazel-Ann Lynch, Kalifa McAlister and Christine Cardinez of “Senor Fluffy”,“Jaya and Jhia” and “Zoey’s Song” respectively. Christine Cardinez came with the angelic voices of her students from the Angel’s School of Music to serenade children and parents alike with sweet Christmas music.
Hazel-Ann Lynch in an interview stated that when she was a child reading was of the most importance to her. She said “During Christmas time my favourite things were tea sets, doll houses and books but you couldn’t give me books and not the tea sets. I didn’t want one without the other, although books are a must. And if you gave me anything and didn’t give me a book I would be upset because I really loved books.”. While each child is different, the children obviously enjoyed reading along with the authors and on their own. One little girl embraced the company of a book she found while there and held onto it for the morning.
The parents in attendance also enjoyed the event. A few of them were first time attendees as they came with Angel’s School of Music but enjoyed the event and hope to attend again next year. Most parents spoke on the fact that reading was important in their children’s lives and that they read everyday. Some children in attendance were not only fans of reading but also budding authors themselves.
With screens being widely available, many parents are returning to quiet reading time to cut down on their children’s screen time. One parent, when asked if reading was important to her at their age stated that “I think I’m also just trying to cut down on screen time, like I’d rather they be on a book than to be on a screen, that is a big part of our belief.”.
As for whether the parents wish there were more events like this one for their children to attend there was a unanimous answer of ‘yes’. Some parents wished they knew about the event earlier in the year and mentioned that especially in Trinidad, events that foster reading in children need to be more widely available and more frequent.
