Ayodeji Ake
Over 2,000 children from different schools who love book reading and other impactful activities were at the seventh edition of the annual Akada Children’s Book Festival in recently.
Speaking at the event, the Founder, Olubunmi Aboderin-Talabi, said, it is important to nurture the children with the habit of reading books reading for good academic performance.
She said the idea of the Akada Book Festival is to provide opportunities to children who enjoy reading and other activities like cheese, knitting, painting, etc., to showcase their skills.
“I’m the founder and convener of The Akada Children’s Book Festival, a free, non-profit community event to attend for those who love books. It’s specifically for children, and it’s the first and largest children’s book festival that we have in Nigeria. Since Akada started. We’ve had several others that have started, and it’s really good to see because that means that the message is catching on, and more people are becoming aware of why it’s important to have literary events that are specifically for children’s storybooks.
“I attend one in Dubai and I saw that the festival had a component that was entirely for children and I saw families come with their young children to enjoy a day that was about books, it was a day that was built a lot around literature and I thought, it would be so nice if we have something similar too and this is the seventh edition,” she explained.
Speaking on the challenges, Aboderin-Talabi said the annual festival is physically tasking and there are financial challenges, noting that the workers are volunteers who came from different parts of the country.
“Some of the challenges are physically tasking and it’s financially tasking, but we still do it because we feel it’s the right thing to do. It’s a volunteer run organisation and all the people that you see, they’re doing it because they feel that it’s the right thing to do. So that’s why they spend the time, the resources, their physical energy to put this kind of event together and as I said, more and more people are starting to start up book festivals for children,’ she said.
Children’s Book Author, Ogbu Eme, who came all the way from Port Harcourt and one of the volunteers, expressed enthusiasm for being called upon to participate in the festival.
“It’s wonderful. When I got an invitation to come here, I was excited because I knew that this was an opportunity for young authors like me to connect with bigger authors, publishers, and you never know who you can meet here. So, it’s well organised. A lot of things are happening at the same time, and not one of them is not disrupting the other. So, it’s a well-organised programme and I’m happy that the children are having fun because it’s basically for the children,” he said
Seven-year-old Asher Onome, a book reviewer who attended the festival for the second time, commended the organisers.
“What I enjoy about this programme is the different types of activities. Last year, we just did a few activities. This year, they had many activities. Thanks to the organisers,” she said.
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