The Magic in the everyday: Guyanese-born author turns classroom lessons into children’s lore

Jul 05, 2026 News

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By Khadidja Ba

(Kaieteur News) – If imagination had a physical address, it would likely look a lot like the whimsical world woven by children’s author Gwenette Pearson-Cambridge. Armed with a boundless sense of wonder and a brilliant palette of stories, the author invites young readers everywhere to step away from the mundane and dive headfirst into the extraordinary. In an interview with Kaieteur News, Cambridge shared profound insight into her extensive career across the region, her creative inspiration, and why she believes the Caribbean literary arts must be fiercely championed.

Her roots in education began in Guyana before she relocated to St. Vincent and the Grenadines, a move that would ultimately shape her lifelong dedication to young minds. “Before I left Guyana, I was a teacher at the F.E. Pollard Primary,” Cambridge explained, clarifying the history of her early career. “I initially started at the St. James the Less, which is now F.E. Pollard.” Her move to St. Vincent marked the beginning of a 41-year marriage to her Vincentian pen pal and a transition into the secondary school system, where she taught language and literature. She attributes her foundational passion for her craft to a prominent Guyanese educator, noting, “My love for storytelling and literature was birthed by Mr. John Rawlings, who taught drama at the Cyril Potter College of Education.”

Cambridge’s academic and professional journey eventually led her to a Master’s degree in early childhood education, transitioning her into the Curriculum Development Unit as the Senior Education Officer for Early Childhood Education in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. This role allowed her to study educational practices across Antigua, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, and Barbados. It was during this period that her literary concepts were born out of practical classroom needs. She recalled a panicked call from a teacher trying to explain “independence” to toddlers during St. Vincent’s independence month in October. “My colleague and I, Mrs. Harry, we said, ‘Okay, we’re going to write a story,'” Cambridge recounted. “We sat down there… got some Bristol boards and made a big book… and we opened the big book and we says, ‘Okay, today we’re going to learn about independence.’ And so this is what independent means.” This hands-on story was later published to teach young learners how to feed them, dress, and build daily independence.

Her series, Come Imagine with Me, serves as an interactive playground designed to foster the creativity that she fears is fading in the digital age. “When I was going to school, and this was many, many moons ago, you had more children being creative,” Cambridge observed. “Because you didn’t have so much exposure to the television or the smartphones or the tablets and all of that… So you have to use your mind to create.” Books in the series address real-world children’s issues, such as The Cookie Monster, which addresses childhood obesity and dental health by teaching children not to eat too many chemically flavored sweets. Other titles, like Shh, Listen, focus on phonics and pronunciation, while her primary school narratives, Dogs Can Be Heroes Too! and Mrs. Snake, are written entirely from the animals’ perspectives to spark imaginative narrative writing.

Cambridge’s upcoming releases continue to weave realistic and regional themes into fiction. Her book Crystal, the Cloud Traveler features a girl cloud who travels over various nations. “She tells us about the different countries that she’s hovering over and traveling to,” Cambridge noted. “So I’ve incorporated for the primary school children… information about the different countries around the Caribbean… Grenada, St. Vincent, Trinidad, Guyana.” Her love for humor and everyday observations also birthed her short story collection, Dem Was the Days and her secondary school textbook, Shaping My Identity through the Eyes of a Child. She laughed as she revealed that a story in the collection titled The Pervert was actually inspired by her young daughter’s fear of lizards and a sudden theory on reincarnation, proving she gets her stories “from just going down the road and seeing somebody and hearing them speak.”

As a retired educator, Cambridge remains deeply concerned about regional literacy and the linguistic bridge between Standard English and Caribbean dialects. “There’s no doubt that we’ve got a literary or a literacy situation in the Caribbean,” she warned, emphasizing that books must guide students on how to analyze themes, characters, and literary devices. “I think in every country where you get the dialect, you know, it does impact on our Standard English.” Reflecting on how regional identity is perceived globally, she expressed admiration for how some nations protect their own talent. “I really admire the way that Jamaica promotes their local writers… They’ve got a sense of pride and loyalty to them,” Cambridge said, urging her home country to adopt a similar stance. “Why don’t we say anywhere in the Caribbean? We want to promote our country as much as we possibly can. Not the negativity… but when there’s something positive that is happening, we have to be able to run with it.”

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• Gwenette Pearson-Cambridge, imagination, The Magic in the everyday

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