by Ikechukwu Ofili
So firstly my BIG announcement.
I will be writing my fourth book (pops champagne) and it will be a children’s book (hides champagne and pops Ribena instead). Yep! The guy that brought you Stupidity, Laziness and some Intelligence will be turning this crazy story about a girl with magical hair into an actual and physical children’s book…SCARY. A story he wrote as a joke to make his fine girlfriend laugh out loud might show up in your children’s classroom.
And to make the book come to life I literarily had to stalk beg the extremely talented Sharee Miller of CoilyandCute. After appearing randomly at her home and offering her suya … she finally agreed to do the illustrations for the book. Now I know some people will be like..but Okechukwu don’t you draw. I do, but she is way way better than me! Just check out some of her illustrations…
As with most of my books I will be carrying you along with the progress. Especially on this one, because frankly I have no experience with writing Children’s books plus I have no kids and when I see Children I curse run. So I will definitely need you on this one. Because this book is very important to me … here’s why ….
Growing up in Nigeria most books I read had characters with long hair and skin as white as snow. But after returning back from America after my university education in 2011 … I found out that the fairy tales had left the books and were now on our national television. Black women with long weaves and skin bleached as yellow white as Snow.
So out of frustration, I decided I needed to turn that fairytale about a princess with an afro into a book. So that little girls and boys in Sub-Saharan Africa can grow up knowing that they are beautiful no matter what their skin color is and how kinked up their hair is!
But my first question is this…should I put pidgin aka broken English in the book? If “no” why and if “yes” why? Let me know in the comments below. Be awesome.
Okechukwu Ofili is an author, speaker, and blogger and a The Trent Elite Voice. Follow him on twitter, Facebook or subscribe to his blog for more honest talk and as @ofilispeaks on instagram for more sketches! To bring Ofili to your school or organization as a speaker simply go here. His third book How Intelligence Kills was published in December 2013, order it at https://bit.ly/intelligencekills.
