Olubunmi Aboderin Talabi is an author, publisher, and corporate director. She is the convener of the award-winning Akada Children’s Book Festival, as well as a trustee of the Association of Children’s Authors & Illustrators of Nigeria (ACAIN), Punch Media Foundation (PMF), and Women In Management Business and Public Service (WIMBIZ).
She is passionate about creating visually engaging, culturally relevant content for children and has a desire to see steadily increasing literacy rates within her community. Olubunmi has written a number of articles in the areas of commerce, agriculture, resource maximization, sanitation, and land use in Nigeria. Her work has been published in several national daily newspapers.
Olubunmi’s passion for writing developed into collaborating with talented artists to create beautifully illustrated children’s picture books designed to make reading attractive, inspire innovation, and excite children, parents, and teachers.
Her published works include Tobi Visits the Conservatory, Kob the Antelope, Diary of a Toddler, Tobi Bakes a Cake, Tobi Learns to Swim, Tobi and the Kid’s Marathon, Tobi at the Art Gallery, On the Water, Mummy, Can I … ?, and the UN Africa SDG Book Club honorary pick, Why Do You Wash Your Hands?
Olubunmi Aboderin Talabi has a BSc in Economics from City University London. Olubunmi also has an honorary doctorate in media & communication and has completed the General Management Program at Harvard Business School as well as the Advanced Management & Leadership Program at Oxford University’s Said Business School.
Let’s start with your story, Olubunmi. Tell us about your earliest memory of falling in love with words.
I would say that my earliest memory of falling in love with words comes from my primary school days. I’ve always loved reading storybooks, as far as I can remember. They were my escape in my childhood and also later in my teenage years. I read books by Cyprian Ekwensi, China Achebe, Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy and so on and so forth. I loved the works of Jane Austen. I loved the fluidity that she had with words. I was a big fan of storybooks and fiction. I loved my Literature class at school. I did it for O Levels & A Levels. In fact, I wanted to study English Literature at university, but back in the 80s and 90s, families in our part of the world had a strong conviction that the best degrees were medicine, accounting, engineering, law, and if you weren’t doing any of those, what are you doing? They didn’t think English was a serious degree, so they didn’t let me do it.
You wear many hats – author, publisher, corporate director, convener. How do these roles intersect and fuel your purpose?
This is simply who I am. This is what I love to do. This is what I would do naturally, even if I wasn’t paid. This is what I am doing. They are the skills I have. I used to work in newspaper publishing. I worked for one of the largest, if not the largest, English-language, daily circulating newspapers in the country. Then I progressed to publishing storybooks for children. I’ve always been good at planning events and organising things, so my role as the convener of a literary festival was just a natural evolution from being a children’s author and seeing the need to have some sort of event that celebrated children’s books. Back when we started the Akada Children’s Book Festival, there were no book festivals that parents could take their children to see the latest in children’s books to understand the breadth and the wealth of children’s books created by indigenous authors, etc. There was no deliberate and exclusive celebration of literature for children emanating from this region at that time. This gap, plus the passion that I have as an author, culminated in the production of what is now known as the first and largest children’s book festival in Nigeria. What fuels my purpose is to see children have better access to age-appropriate storybooks.
The Akada Children’s Book Festival has become a cultural cornerstone. What inspired its creation, and what has surprised you most about its evolution over the last 7 years?
Yes, it is a cultural cornerstone. It is something that is supported by families, reading clubs, and schools across the state and sometimes from across the different parts of the country. What inspired its creation were the things mentioned earlier, plus the fact that Nigeria is blessed with a wealth of authors, but back then, our authors overwhelmingly wrote for adults. Indigenously-created children’s storybooks were scarce. We had plenty of textbooks for children, but very few storybooks. That gap helped inspire the festival, plus the majority of children’s authors are self-published, and they experienced a challenge that stymies most self-published authors: distribution. The festival provided a platform for authors to meet their audience and for their audience to discover new books. For reasons that would make a fascinating study, many children’s authors are women. The festival is a way of helping women showcase their work by bringing them directly face-to-face with their audience.
What surprises me the most about the evolution over the last 7 years is that it’s still a bit of a struggle getting people to understand the importance of children’s books. Some still hold the view that children’s books are written by children, as opposed to books that are written by adults for children. Some even think that children’s books are the same as comics. They wonder why someone who’s worked in the corporate world would now want to focus on creating “comics” for children. They don’t seem to want to understand the difference between a picture book and a graphic novel and they don’t seem to recognise the VALUE that each genre offers. That has surprised me a lot. A large chunk of the work we have done is to increase awareness, to let parents, teachers and caregivers know that having storybooks from an early age is actually beneficial, instrumental and important to the creative development of your child. Things are changing gradually but definitively. People are getting to realise that indeed storybooks have a unique role to play.
This year’s theme is “Book An Adventure.” What kind of adventure do you hope every child walks away with after attending?
Every year we have a different theme and this year the theme of the festival is “Book An Adventure”. The theme is a play on words. In one sense it can be taken to mean that a book is an adventure (you never know what you’ll learn or where it will take you), or it could be taken to mean that reading a book is an adventure. It can also be taken to mean reserve an adventure (in the same way you would book a journey or a vacation). Whichever way you turn it, the ethos is discovery, new experiences, curiosity and learning. The kind of adventure I hope every child walks away with is that their creativity and innovative thinking have been expanded, that they’ve been able to witness life from somebody else’s perspective and that their understanding of other people’s plight and of how the world works, has been improved. Above all, through all the various activities that take place at the festival: the book readings; the storytime sessions; the children’s workshops; the parent’s workshops; the chess tournament; the Scrabble championship; the sip and paint; the sensory play; the STEM puzzles; the exhibition, and so on, my hope is that the festival sets off a chain reaction that leads to the improvement of the vocabulary, the communication skills and the confidence of every child that attends. I really want them to come away with a sense of travel, even while being in one location, as in travelling for an adventure through reading a book, seeing what life is like for others and developing empathy and emotional intelligence as a result.
Why is it so important for children to see themselves — their culture, language, and environment — reflected in the books they read?
It is important for children to see themselves reflected in the books they read because of their self-esteem and because of the way it affects their development. If you constantly don’t see yourself in books or in creative productions, it can give the impression that perhaps other people are more important or that somehow their own culture or their own language or their own environment are more important than your own culture, language, or environment. So when somebody has taken the time to create this beautiful book and they have a hero that looks like you, talks like you, eats the food you eat, sings the types of songs you sing, lives in a place that’s very familiar you, the reader feels a subtle sense of validation. In some cases, it helps keep them interested in the story when they can relate to what they are reading.
How do you stay grounded while navigating high-impact spaces across media, business, and education? The network of people around me and the feedback they provide. I receive feedback from my family, friends, colleagues, and direct reports. There is still a lot for me to learn. I never feel like I’ve arrived. I regularly get the sense that there must be more, that I can do things better, that things can be improved, and so on. I’m not resting on any laurels, perceived or real. I would say that’s how I stay grounded. I have a very supportive family that takes an active interest in what I do. My husband and my mother both speak words of wisdom, even in the little things. They can come up with solutions that help me see things from a different perspective. I have egbons and senior colleagues who would not allow me to become too big for my boots. They keep me grounded. I have a solid network of friends who can talk to me if they think I need guidance. I surround myself with “mirrors” and “champions”. Mirrors are the people who can tell you the things that you can’t see about yourself. They see your blind spots, they can advise you and because they are trustworthy, you listen to what they have to say. Your champions are people who will go to bat for you. They’re the ones who will speak up for you when you are not in the room. They are the ones who will stand up for you. They’re the ones who opened doors for you. I stay grounded because I have people who are like mirrors around me, and they can tell me things about myself and see things about me that I perhaps cannot see. I also have champions who defend me, and one of the ways of defending someone is actually to warn them ahead of time of potential pitfalls. They help you prevent some avoidable issues.
What’s one leadership lesson you wish more women learned earlier in their careers?
I can’t limit it to one, but I’ll select a few. Don’t let imposter syndrome drown you. Cultivate a healthy self-esteem. Believe in yourself enough to raise your hand for the task and be a lifelong learner. I think that everyone on the leadership track should be constantly reading, understanding, and improving their mind. I will add this: learn the difference between what is urgent and what is important. Do not allow the urgent to swallow what is important. I think that’s a really important lesson to learn and to understand early in one’s career so that one does not sub-optimise by sacrificing what is important for what is urgent. Create time for your family “in the now” because who knows what’s going to happen in the future? Yes, it’s important to get your foot on the corporate ladder, etc, but as you become older, you realise the importance of your family. You realise that family is (human connections are) reall,y actually more important than the career, although at the onset it may seem like advancing professionally or growing your business is everything. Don’t burn bridges and don’t assume that your family will wait or still be there if you repeatedly de-prioritise them in favour of your career. Don’t assume that you’ll spend time with them later because tomorrow is not guaranteed. If you are lucky enough to have opportunities to be there for your spouse and children as they grow, seize those opportunities. Don’t assume that you’ll be able to do it when you have made it, because things may be different then. I have heard older, respected, highly accomplished achievers (male and female) lament in their latter years about the milestones they missed in their children’s formative years, etc. Don’t let that be you.
One word that describes how you feel when you see a child reading your book?
Rewarding. It’s very, very rewarding when I see a child reading my book. I’m like, “Wow, all that work is worth it. All that expense, all that effort, is worth it, because there’s a child who now has this book, and that child can read, practice their vocabulary, practice their reading skills, get an insight into their own culture, into their own self, etc”. When the children love the book and they come and they give me feedback or they come and ask me “when am I writing another one?” or “what’s the next book in the series?”, it’s absolutely delightful. One of the most rewarding things I think I’ve ever done (outside of my family life) is to write books for children and the reward is to see the joy on their faces when they read these books.
Finally, what’s your dream for literacy in Nigeria (and across Africa) in the next 10 years?
Having 100% literacy and having well-stocked, fully-powered libraries in every single local government, in every single state across Nigeria, and to have the scene replicated across Africa, so that nobody is more than a few minutes away from a library. That would be a dream come true, and it can happen with the right legislation; an increase in awareness about the benefits of having libraries; people donating books for libraries to be set up in their community, and so on. In some countries, they have mobile libraries, pop-up libraries, public libraries, class libraries, school libraries, private libraries, etc. Having a place where students can go and do their homework; a place where people can borrow books when they don’t have enough money to buy the books. I know that people might think that this is the digital age and people don’t read printed books anymore, but not everybody has data, not everybody has a device. Books still have a role to play.
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