New year, new authors

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

As 2026 dawned, two young sis­ters marked the New Year not just with cel­e­bra­tion, but with ac­com­plish­ment—launch­ing their very first chil­dren’s books along­side their proud par­ents.

Eleven-year-old Em­ma Teelucks­ingh and her five-year-old sis­ter Eliana Teelucks­ingh are the au­thors of Smil­ing Sto­ries for Smart Chil­dren and Small Sto­ries for Smil­ing Chil­dren. The books, writ­ten with young read­ers in mind, are filled with short, imag­i­na­tive tales that pro­mote clean­li­ness, good habits, kind­ness and hap­pi­ness.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Em­ma said the idea to write a book came to her more than a year ago.

“I was in­spired by Roald Dahl and Charles Schulz,” she said, ref­er­enc­ing two of the most in­flu­en­tial fig­ures in chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture.

That in­spi­ra­tion quick­ly turned in­to ac­tion af­ter a sim­ple con­ver­sa­tion at home. Em­ma re­called ask­ing her moth­er, An­drea, whether she had to wait un­til she was an adult to be­come an au­thor.

“She said no, any­body could do it,” Em­ma said.

For Eliana, sto­ry­telling be­gan long be­fore pub­lish­ing was even con­sid­ered. Her ideas were born dur­ing bed­time rou­tines at home.

“My dad­dy would tell me fun­ny bed­time sto­ries, and some­times I would add to these sto­ries. Some­times I make up my own bed­time sto­ries,” she said.

“Then one night, dad­dy said he liked my sto­ries and said he was go­ing to put my sto­ries in­to a book.”

Both girls said the word smil­ing was in­ten­tion­al­ly cho­sen for their book ti­tles.

“There are too many sad kids in Trinidad and To­ba­go and al­so in the world. I want to make them smile,” Em­ma said.

Eliana echoed that sen­ti­ment, say­ing, “I want­ed chil­dren to be smil­ing and hap­py when read­ing the sto­ries in my book.”

Clean­li­ness and good habits are re­cur­ring themes through­out both books, in­flu­enced by the girls’ own ex­pe­ri­ences. Em­ma re­flect­ed on lessons learned dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

“When I was younger, I re­mem­ber how dur­ing COVID, clean­li­ness was very im­por­tant,” she said.

She al­so high­light­ed the so­cial im­pact of hy­giene among chil­dren.

“I know that when a child is clean, he or she would not be teased or bul­lied by oth­er stu­dents.”

Eliana con­nect­ed the theme to health—and fun.

“Clean­li­ness is im­por­tant be­cause I don’t want to spread germs,” she said, adding, “In my sto­ry ‘Fe­lipe and Pa­co play with bub­bles’, I write about bathing be­ing fun.”

Em­ma said her favourite sto­ry in her book is Smar­tie School.

“My best sto­ry is ‘Smar­tie School’ be­cause it shows why chil­dren must go to school as well as the im­por­tance of healthy eat­ing for chil­dren,” she said.

Eliana’s favourite sto­ry takes a more fu­tur­is­tic ap­proach.

“My favourite is ‘Eliana vis­its plan­ets’. It deals with the fu­ture- about space trav­el,” she said.

“Some chil­dren like vis­it­ing oth­er coun­tries and I thought they would like this sto­ry.”

The sis­ters al­so col­lab­o­rat­ed close­ly through­out the writ­ing process.

“I would share my ideas with my sis­ter, and if she laughs or shows in­ter­est, then I de­cide to use it,” Em­ma said.

Eliana read­i­ly cred­it­ed her old­er sis­ter for help­ing bring her sto­ries to life. “Yes, my sis­ter helped me a lot with gram­mar, punc­tu­a­tion and spelling. I don’t know about these things,” she said.

The girls’ in­ter­est in writ­ing was nur­tured in a home where books play a cen­tral role. Their fa­ther, Dr Jerome Teelucks­ingh, is a lec­tur­er in his­to­ry at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine, and an ac­com­plished au­thor whose pas­sion for writ­ing has clear­ly in­flu­enced his chil­dren.

Dr Teelucks­ingh said he was pleased to see his daugh­ters em­brac­ing sto­ry­telling at such a young age.

“I feel very hap­py that they are show­ing in­ter­est in writ­ing. The pow­er of words is be­ing lost in this age of AI,” he said.

Their moth­er al­so ex­pressed pride in their achieve­ments.

“We are very proud! We thank God for these two bless­ings,” she said.

See­ing the fin­ished books for the first time was emo­tion­al for both girls.

“I felt very proud and hap­py. It is one of my biggest achieve­ments!” Em­ma said.

Eliana’s re­ac­tion was filled with ex­cite­ment.

“I was shocked, and couldn’t be­lieve it. I grabbed my book and ran around scream­ing with joy! That night, I asked mum­my to read me all the sto­ries,” she said.

De­spite their young ages, both sis­ters al­ready have words of en­cour­age­ment for oth­er as­pir­ing writ­ers.

“Keep on try­ing, be­lieve in your­self. I know you could do it. I be­lieve each child has the abil­i­ty to write a sto­ry or book,” Em­ma said.

Eliana added, “Don’t give up on your dreams. Get help from an old­er broth­er or sis­ter or par­ent to help you write and pub­lish sto­ries.”

Any­one want­i­ng to sup­port the two young au­thors can con­tact their fa­ther Dr Teelucks­ingh at jtlux­ing@ya­hoo.com or call 283-4587.