The Little Regent by Ywande Daniel-Ayoade explores leadership

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Ewande Danielle-Ayoade's younger children have recently gone through their Disney princess phase.

This is not uncommon for young girls. Danielle-Ayoade is a mother of four daughters and one son, ages 7 to 18. So he may have seen this kind of passion among his children before.

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“They would watch all the princess shows on TV,” says Daniel-Ayoade. “I said to myself, 'Where's the African princess with the African story?' I thought. I thought, wouldn't it be nice to have someone who looks like my children in a culture they are familiar with?'

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This is how the upcoming picture book of the talented writer “Little Regent” was born. This is Daniel-Ayoade's fifth book since 2019 and his first published by Owl Kids. The Little Regent is a princess story with a bit of a twist. He grew up in Nigeria as part of the Yoruba tribe, a story drawn from West African culture that predates Britain's colonization of Nigeria in the 19th century. Until the 1800s, communities were ruled by kings known as Obas. When Nigeria gained independence and adopted democracy. Obas was an adviser to the government. When one died, it was customary for the eldest son to take over. But if the Oba had no son, the eldest daughter would serve as regent until a male replacement was found. This is still common in West Africa.

“I thought it would be good to write about it,” he says. “This also occurred to me during the election season. Then you see all the politicians behaving badly on TV. This is where the theme of the story comes from, leadership. Children need to know and see what good leadership looks like. So all of these things came together and informed this book.”

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The Little Regent, which is set to release on March 15, is currently set in a village in West Africa. Abioye is the eight-year-old daughter of the deceased king and she became the regent of the community. His idea is that he will keep the role until the “kingmakers” choose three people who will be voted on by the villagers to become the new king. The village chiefs believe that Abioye is not up to the task, but he asks his mother how to lead. She tells her daughter that she might learn to serve the community first by “watching and listening.”

And so begins Abioye's adventure in his village, written through the concise prose and lively illustrations of Ken Daly. The girl regent ignores expectations that she will keep a royal distance from the townspeople. He goes to the village to find out what is needed. It is here that he learns that certain problems plague the village, including dirty water, poverty and inequality. Soon after, Abioye, frustrated by his superiors, began to tackle problems head-on and find solutions.

In researching the book, Daniel-Ayoade discovered that there was a movement among some Yorubas in West Africa to question the tradition that kings should be male.

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“I heard a lot of people in the newspaper saying, 'If they've done a good job while they're here, should they be replaced?' “I found many articles,” he says. “So, in a slightly subversive way, I challenge this culture and join the voices that are asking questions and saying, 'We can change traditions.' It doesn't have to stay like this.”

Born and educated in Nigeria, Daniel-Ayoade began writing at the age of eight. He earned a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Ibadan before moving to the US to pursue a master's degree in business at Emory University in Atlanta. He was in the US until moving to Calgary about ten years ago, where he works as a management consultant.

In his 20s, he wrote a full-length novel that was never published, but received enough positive reviews to convince him it should be written. But sharing picture books with her children started her love for the medium. But he started writing only in 2019. She has self-published four children's books, including three based on a little girl named Sade who moved to Canada with her family from Nigeria. In 2020, she published a story about an imaginative little girl who suffers from anxiety about going to a new school.

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Although Daniel-Ayoade is passionate about exploring West African culture and the immigrant experience through all of his books, he says the themes are universal.

Her oldest daughter, Elizabeth, is 18 and studying art and creative writing in Toronto. She is also a major literary scholar when it comes to her mother's books.

“Younger kids think (the books) are good to have in their classrooms,” she says. “I think they were a little excited about that fact, even though they tried not to show it.”

Little Regent will be available on March 15th. Ewande Daniel-Ayoade will be holding a book signing at Owl's Nest Books on March 16th.

Black History Month Events

• Storytelling Alberta presents an evening of storytelling from the perspective of African immigrants through music, spoken word poetry and storytelling. Sarah Uvadia hosts 6:30-8:30pm on February 28, 2024 at CARYA Village Commons Cafe, 610 8th Ave., SE or online at www.storytellingalberta.com/calgary. Adetola AdedipeChampion of Community Building Nigeria-South Africa Slam Poetry; Jola Adeniji Nigerian Canadian storyteller and visual artist; Femi David aka Big Ben/Olu Rock, Nigerian Canadian multi-disciplinary artist and storyteller drummer and storyteller, specialist in developmental disabilities; and Sudy-Anne Brown, A spoken word poet from Jamaica, he was a three-time National Gold Medalist.

• The National Music Center presents Pass the Mic with Master T and guests on February 27th. Hosted and hosted by Master T, the event will feature multiple Juno Award winner Liberty Silver, Calgary Poet Laureate Wakefield Brewster and Juno-nominated Canadian-Nigerian singer-producer Nonso Amadi.

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