When Tonye Faloughi-Ekezie decided to write her first book it was for her own children and she printed just two copies. She had been trying to explain to her son why people came to the house to play with his sister, Simone, but not him.
“When my son, Ugo, was about five, he came up to me perplexed and asked why he was not allowed to join in,” the Nigerian author recalls. “I explained to him that those people who visited were actually therapists because Simone has Down’s syndrome. Of course, he went on to ask me ‘what is Down’s syndrome?’.”
Faloughi-Ekezie searched for a book to help but found none that “represented our situation”. So she wrote one. Ugo and Sim Sim: What is Down Syndrome? was published five years ago. Sim Sim, Simone’s nickname, now features in Faloughi-Ekezie’s series of five books.
“There is a severe lack of local content that depicts the modern African family,” she says. “African children with special needs have very few entertainment or learning resources which have them represented in characters.”
Faloughi-Ekezie is among a number of Nigerian authors beginning to fill a gap in the children’s books market in a country where – despite the young population – publishing is “a mammoth task, and a minefield full of challenges and obstacles”.
Lola Shoneyin, poet and author behind Ouida Books, a thriving Lagos publisher, has spearheaded a one-year programme training writers, illustrators, editors and agents to “revolutionise” Nigeria’s children’s book industry. Book Storm is running as part of the Book Buzz Foundation, founded by Shoneyin in 2013 to promote literacy and which is also behind the Aké Arts and Book festival.
“A broken children’s publishing industry needs an injection of talent and training,” says Shoneyin. “Book Storm will change the game. We aim to disrupt the narrative about the non-availability of children’s books in Nigeria and support the publication of 100 children’s books by the end of 2027.”
Shoneyin, named one of the Financial Times 25 most influential women of 2023, has written seven children’s books. Novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has described Shoneyin’s work as “a labour of love”.
Shoneyin met Faloughi-Ekezie while making the 2021 documentary Flowers for Warriors, about Nigerians caring for children with special needs. Faloughi-Ekezie told her about her children’s reaction to the book she had made for them.
“Their joy affirmed how important these stories are and how much representation matters,” Faloughi-Ekezie says.
Faloughi-Ekezie went on to print and sell a further 5,000 copies before signing with Ouida Books. Her fifth book in the series is now about to be published.
Shoneyin says: “When Tonye told me about her Ugo and Sim Sim series, I immediately wanted to publish them so she could get on with the business of writing.
“Before I met Tonye, the only Nigerian book I knew that featured a child with disabilities was Splendid by Mobolaji Adenubi. I was excited about publishing children’s books that would give visibility to Nigerian children with special needs. I also thought it was very brave of her to write candid stories about her two children, and Simone is the spunkiest girl you’ve ever met.”
Precious Olagoke, one of those attending the Book Storm classes, wrote eight stories before she was 14 and is hoping to develop them. Olagoke says: “Nigerian children get more excited when they see characters that look like them. Books are like mirrors.”
Before her children were born, Faloughi-Ekezie worked in TV and film production, on shows such as Big Brother Nigeria and Idols West Africa. Her career was put on hold when Simone was diagnosed with Down’s syndrome and a heart condition, and she spent the first three years of her daughter’s life taking her to hospitals in the US and the UK, away from her husband and son. Writing helped her take back some control. “I didn’t even know black people got Down’s syndrome,” she says.
Children with special needs are largely viewed “through the lens of myths, prejudice and stigma” in Nigeria she says. “It was and is a stigma, as if that’s something that’s happened to you as a result of your sin or someone has cursed you.”
Simone is now eight and “has brought so much light and joy into our family”, says Faloughi-Ekezie. “She’s taught us to be grateful and to take joy in the smallest things. At the moment, she loves to swim, she has taken up gymnastics and is also a burgeoning painter, who has been signed to the Children’s Art Gallery in Lagos.”
Faloughi-Ekezie is adamant that “every child with special needs should be loved exactly as they are”.
