African Picture Book Author Spotlight: Adama Loves Akara by Vickie Remoe
Meet Sierra Leonean children’s book author Vickie Remoe!
Vickie Remoe is a television producer, presenter, podcaster, television host and children’s book author!
Born in Sierra Leone in a multiethnic family (Krio-Yoruba father and Temne mother) at a young age, Vickie understood and appreciated her diversity.
Her formative years were spent in Sierra Leone, Ethiopia and the United States, where she graduated from Haverford College and Columbia University.
After a successful career in television, where she hosted the Vickie Remoe Shoe (which many consider a cross between “The Oprah Show” and Anthony' Bourdain’s “Parts Unknown,” Vickie has ventured into strategic communication and marketing.
I asked Vickie to share her story and journey to becoming a children's book author. She discusses her writing, advice to new children’s book authors, and exciting new projects.
For some background, tell us a bit about yourself. Where are you from, and what you do?
I am from Freetown, the coastal capital city of Sierra Leone. I'm most known for my role as TV Host of the Vickie Remoe Show, which is a travel and business series that broadcasts on national TV in SL. By day I work as a global communications consultant supporting institutions and leaders to develop strategies to document and amplify the impact of their work.
When did you first become interested in writing for children? Did you always know you wanted to write African heritage books?
I became a children's book author, serendipitously. I was reading with my son helping him practice phonemes with Bob Books, when he looked up and said, "Mama, this doesn't make sense". He was 3 years old. What he was saying was that he couldn't relate to "Sam Sat on Mat”. The next day I sat in my bed from morning to night trying to write early readers to help children practice short and long letter vowel sounds. That’s how I came to write the first three Adama Loves Akara Books.
When it comes to early readers, I think we default assume that representation doesn't matter because children are still developing their literacy skills. We don’t think about the content. We focus more on phoneme learning, but representation always matters. The appropriate age to expose your children to learning materials; books, movies, and art with characters that look like them is from birth. We have to normalise our culture in books, especially when raising African children in the countries where Black people are in the minority.
What have been the challenges to writing, publishing and marketing an African heritage book?
I self-published via Amazon. While this made the book immediately accessible across Amazon's international marketplaces, none of those marketplaces are in Africa. I've had to email printers in China, Turkey, and India to get quotes that would bring the retail price low enough to make the book affordable in our home country of Sierra Leone. The cost of air freighting books from China to Sierra Leone is 1.5x the cost of printing the books. So far, making the book accessible to African children on the continent is the biggest challenge. There will be a three-month delay between the book's availability on Amazon and when it gets to Sierra Leone.
As a storyteller, my target audience is first and foremost people of African descent at home and in the diaspora. So whether it is a TV show, digital content, or a children's book, I don't have any fears about producing stories for and about Black or African people. If anything, knowing the misrepresentation and under-representation of our stories across all mediums is a source of inspiration. Also, I firmly believe that Africans have a lot to teach the world. It is our responsibility as storytellers to share our values and our customs to make the world a better place.
Did you have any fears or self-doubts when writing an African heritage children’s book? What were they, and how did you overcome them?
Fear of being too personal, exposing too much. But then again, it is all in your mind, isn't it?
What advice do you have for authors writing African heritage children’s books?
For the author hesitating about writing an African heritage children’s story because they don't think there is a big enough audience for African Children's stories, I just want to remind them that the market for African stories is huge. Beyond North America and the UK, there are children of African descent in the Caribbean, South America, and the entire African continent. Think about scaling your story to make it accessible to the global black population. It might mean translating your story into different languages, or like I'm having to do, finding different distribution outlets to make the book more accessible and affordable. Lastly, it is really important that you develop a marketing strategy for your book.
Make sure you do put out a press release and pitch features about you and your work to media outlets. One first thing you can do is look for news stories that have been written about early childhood development, representation and multiculturalism in children's books. Pick out the authors and get their email addresses or Twitter handles, and pitches your story to them. Of course, if you have a publisher for your book, then you don't have to worry about marketing because the publisher will handle that for you.
What is your favourite African heritage children’s book?
I'm a huge fan of Kwame Nyong'o, who is a Kenya writer and illustrator (check out his author feature here). My son and I love his series around Kenyan life and food. He has three books that we read over and over again (The Yummiest Githeri, The Tasty Mandazi, and I love Ugali & Sukumawiki). They are all available on Amazon.
I met him in Kenya in 2019 when I was there doing some work for the BBC. I went to an arts village and met him at his workshop. His books opened my eyes to the important role children's stories play in African cultural preservation. From the US, I love Ada Twist Scientist.
Any advice on how people can encourage children to read more diverse books?
You have to be living in a shoebox to not know that we live in a multicultural and globally connected world. If nothing else, the pandemic has taught us about the impact of globalisation. What is happening in China can affect your life in Wisconsin, and what is happening in France can affect your life in Nigeria. Parents do a disservice to their children when they don't prepare them for the globalised world. The way to do this is by exposing them to diverse ideas, people, and customs. To encourage children to read diverse books, parents need to make the intentional decision to buy books that represent people of all cultures, faiths, physical ability, race, gender, and sexuality.
What are you working on next? Are there any other African heritage children’s books that you have written?
I am currently working on illustrations for “Sisi's Sewing Tin”, the second book in the Adama Loves Akara early reader book series. After that, I will work on the third book Uncle Bundu's Dundun. I also will start writing additional stories to complete the series. I have to write stories with E and O vowel sounds, A, I and U are complete.
Three Fun Facts:
Three things about me are that I'm really good at hula hooping, I’ll travel anywhere for good coffee, and like any serious modern parent, I often hide in my toilet with my phone to get alone time away from my son.