Awah hit the klieg lights after she produced her debut movie Bent Arrows, and its follow-up, Broken Arrows, but when everyone thought she was about to make a huge statement, she took to publishing and writing. She scored a first by publishing Nigeria’s first personalised book.
“I am having Afang soup; how about you” she asked. “It’s good and healthy; too, you should try it.”
“I do. I have tried it a few times and the periwinkle is the best part of the meal.”
After we had settled in and handed over the menu, we had a few minutes of silence and I went: “What’s a personalised book?” I could not refrain from asking that.
Before now, she had her nose buried in a cup of sherry, but she lowered her glass, nursing it with her right palm. “First, I was inspired by the desire to positively affect lives through literature. Now, a personalised book is one that is custom-made for a child, with the child as the main character. The child’s friends are the supporting characters. Some personalised books are photo-based while others are not.” This has helped her push the ‘bring back the book’ campaign to an entirely new level.
Still at sea, I asked why bio-chemist who graduated from the University of Uyo got the inspiration to begin writing.
At this point, our first order arrived.
“Good stuff. Hmm,” she said. I couldn’t help but agree more. Periwinkles, fish, snail and huge lobsters cut in half made it almost difficult for my spoon to navigate through the soup.
“There’s always a soft-spot for something in every person’s life. Mine was easy; my desire to write something important drove me to go get a Master of Liberal Arts degree in Literature and Creative Writing from the Harvard University. Prior to that, a few things motivated me to start writing personalised stories for children. First off, I had the experience of seeing the joy and excitement children derive from reading personalised stories.
“When my children were very young, I told personalised stories to them, in which they were the heroes and heroines. They loved these stories and always wanted to hear more of them.” Even though she had been writing for many years and already had some of her works published, it did not occur to her then to get these stories printed and personalised for different children.
While in the United States a few years ago, she ordered some personalised books for her children and some of her friends’ children. She was disappointed at what she saw. “I really needed to see personalised books that would not only entertain the child, but at the same time, inculcate positive values and showcase something of the African culture.” Determined to do something, she realised that she could meet the need for personalised books and also positively affect lives through literature by creating a business that would make personalised storybooks for children. But Awah began writing as a means to an end: “Apart from writing to encourage a healthy reading culture among children, I intend to help boost the self-esteem of every young reader of the My Rainbow series.”
Awah does agree that these are not the best of times for Nigerian children. “We need to do constructive things that will get the children back to academic ways. These days, our children spend more time watching television and playing computer games than they do reading books. We need to get children more into their books and out of these dangerous inventions and a good way to do this is to give that child a personalised book. I can assure you that that child will not put down the book, until he/she gets to the last page.”
There’s also a psychological angle to her campaign. “Personalised books encourage reading and build the self-esteem of the child. The child is the hero/heroine in the story and that greatly affirms the child’s belief in the uniqueness of his/her personality. Also, these personalised books instil positive values.”
For all her love for books and her efforts to get Nigerian children reading again, the CEO of My Rainbow Books still has time for her the art form that brought her fame – movie-making. “I still produce films and write scripts, songs, poems, short stories, scripts and many other things, to keep my mind active.”
“Do you really like this soup?”
“Matter of fact, I do.”
“If you don’t don’t worry, the Greek Salad will be better. After all, you are not Efik, so…” We share a laugh which almost rocks the place. The salad did taste better; more like an exotic form of the salad we all know, just without the cream and with a few ‘strange-looking’ ingredients.
But Awah does not kid herself. She acknowledges that there is a dearth of reading culture even among the country’s elite and not just for a particular class. “In most Nigerian homes, there is no library. If you randomly pick a number of Nigerians and ask each one how many books he/she has read since the year began, I can bet you that more than half of the number will tell you that they have not read any. We do not read. What is even worse is that we are doing very little to encourage our children to read. Most parents allow their children to spend time watching television or playing computer games. It is a sad reality.”
But like a true, passion-driven campaigner, Awah does more than list the issues. She also has a few solutions to proffer. As part of her bring-back-the-book-to-the-child campaign, Awah’s My Rainbow Books hosts a free-to-enter annual creative writing competition for children between the ages of 5 and 16, which could either be a short story or poem, submitted to a website. The entry voted to be the best will win a fabulous prize.
“Actually,” she said, her fingers drumming on the fancy table, “the deadline for this year’s submission is January 31, 2013 and the website for submission of entries is competition@myrainbowbooks.com.”
I come away with an almost perfect impression of the woman who has made writing for children a forte of sorts.
leadership.ng/features/746/isang-awah-all-for-children
1 comment:
Nice blog. Find the lastest custom storybooks for kids .
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