Cambridgeshire parents inspiring children all over the world with their kid’s books
In the middle of the first lockdown, exhausted from the narratives circling the Black Lives Matter movement in June, one Cambridgeshire couple decided to make a change.
Dele and Louisa Olafuyi were devastated to find that their one-year-old boy, Ire, was starting to grow up in a world where only one per cent of children’s books have a main character that looks like him, and where the news was full of sadness and despair for Black lives. So to combat this, they decided to write their own.
Dele said: “We wanted to teach him about his African heritage. We couldn’t find high-quality material out there. We started writing our own and realised it was important to share this with every child. They deserve to learn about African stories too.”
They created stories based on characters from Africa’s ancient history. Their friends, having seen their creations, soon begged the couple to share these stories wider.
Six months later, Dele and Louisa had self-published four books about ‘Africa’s Little Kings and Queens’, entirely written by them and illustrated by a Nigerian illustrator.
This entirely Black-owned project launched in December with their first four books. In the first month, they posted them across the globe to start teaching over 2500 children about their own and other peoples heritage.
Dele said: “Children’s literature needs Black representation. We have always known that when children don’t get exposed to other races early that’s part of what causes problems [with racism] in future. We wanted to play our part in solving that problem.
“We don’t want to just see negative Black stories shared. Children just want good stories, and we want to show there’s a lot of greatness in Africa.”
Dele said in his school years in Nigeria he didn’t learn much about some of the figures in his books. Louisa, British with Ugandan heritage, was only taught of Africa’s history of slavery and colonisation at school in England.
The couple, currently based in Eddington, Cambridgeshire decided to tell the positive stories that have been buried.
Dele said: “This has been hugely important for our son. Black children from the diaspora need to learn where they come from. These stories help connect them to their roots.”
Dele said in his school years in Nigeria he didn’t learn much about some of the figures in his books. Louisa, British with Ugandan heritage, was only taught of Africa’s history of slavery and colonisation at school in England.
The couple, currently based in Eddington, Cambridgeshire decided to tell the positive stories that have been buried.
Dele said: “This has been hugely important for our son. Black children from the diaspora need to learn where they come from. These stories help connect them to their roots.”
It’s already had an impact on their young readers, parents and teachers, calling the books ‘important’ with stories ‘beyond the run of the mill fighting for freedom narrative.’
One commented: “My daughter wants me to call her Yaa [after their book about Queen Yaa], she’s obsessed! We love it.”