CLEMENTINA ELBA has been teaching early years kids at school for two decades and it was a lack of affirmative text within the plethora of available children’s books in the UK school curriculum that spurred her onto write her latest book I Am The Possibility.
Having already whet her pen with her first book, I Am Enough, under her own company Black Boy Magic Limited, Elba, a mother and business women, is on a mission to ‘empower children so much, that they’re so self-assured that nothing can interfere with their focus and where they are going.’
“I love teaching the early years,” Elba told Lifestyle.
She added: “My babies (I teach) are three to five-years-old, that’s what I have been doing for the past 20 years and my book is called I Am The Possibility and it goes on a journey of siblings, black boys, black girls.
“The boy has vitiligo like my son does. He’s like, ‘mum that’s me’. I was like, yes it is, it’s based on you.
“But it’s showing them what they can be when you don’t let the world’s noise interfere with who you have been created to be.
“It goes through a visualisation process of different career choices; it goes through just believing in themselves.
“It goes through understanding that the possibility lives within them and not externally, and the validation comes from within them as well.
“So, at the back we have incorporated some colouring sheets as well, just to promote fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination and they are surrounded by affirmations as well. They are affirming their greatness at the same time.”
I Am The Possibility was written during lockdown, “time created that I always thought I didn’t have,” Elba explained.
She added: “So because of what we do in early years, because our focus is so much on building children’s self-esteem, self-worth, their values systems, I was like, but what can we do to embed this throughout the curriculum?
“I am blessed enough to have a really supportive school so everything that I have created is embedded within my school curriculum, and eight other schools have my book already.
“I don’t know how all of this has happened.”
Elba’s book will be available from October 16. It’s the culmination of a journey she never envisioned, but one that feels right.
“My journey of becoming an author was literally from March until August because I then brought my book out on August 1.
“It wasn’t like other people, it felt really like I birthed something inside of me because I have been doing the work that
I’m trying to do with families with teachers, I’ve been doing that process.
“Along the way I birthed a new talent inside of me and I wasn’t scared, I wasn’t afraid to put myself out there as I would have been before.”
Search @ourfamilymagic on Facebook for more information.
Comments Form