Four-year-old Coryn Clarke writes her first book

SOME people spend years dreaming about writing a book. Well Coryn Anaya Clarke has fulfilled that dream and she's only four years old.

Her book, Chronicles of Coryn 7 Days of Fun, was recently released (with some help from her parents).

Her mother Dionne Baptiste-Clarke, in a Facebook post, said at the end of June Coryn told her she wanted to write a book. On July 3, she brought a chair next to her mother's home work station and started to write.

"She wrote and wrote, only pausing to ask for help spelling the words she wasn’t too familiar with. By the time she had gotten through with the third chapter, she told me she needed an artist. Well at this point I had no choice but to act because obviously, she was serious."

And Coryn had very clear idea of what she wanted as she told the illustrator exactly what she wanted and made him do multiple revisions until her vision was satisfied.

"The very first picture he worked on was the the cover. After a cursory glance she shook her head and said 'no, no, no! Mummy this isn’t right, she isn’t brown enough.' It took the illustrator two other attempts before he delivered a shade of brown (she) was satisfied with."

Coryn came up with the name of the book, the concept for the cover and all the other illustrations. She even planned a book launch but covid19 put a halt to her plan.

Newsday Kids chatted with Coryn and her mom last week on a Zoom call.

Asked why she wrote the book, she replied: "Because I wanted to."

She likes to read and she especially likes animal books and "learning" books. Her favourite book is the Bible. She explained the story is about her and her family. In her book, Coryn does yoga, ballet, music, swimming, painting and Bible learning. Her first step was to "write words that make sense" and the final step was to come up with all the pictures.

She read from her book live on Instagram and has done virtual interviews.

Asked how she felt when she first saw a copy of her book, she replied: "I felt proud. I felt happy I wrote the book."

She said her aunties and uncles were very proud of her for writing the book.

And who does she want to read it?

"Big people, small people, all people around the world."

Coryn wants to continue writing and selling books when she gets older. She also has a second book planned which will again be about her family and will feature "new stuff" on every family member.

And what would she say to children her age who do not like to read or find it hard?

"I will tell them reading is fun. You can do anything you put your mind to."

Chronicles of Coryn 7 Days of Fun was released on Amazon on August 7 and there is both a Kindle and a paperback version.