Ayo’s Adventure encourages readers to explore African culture across the globe from A to Z. Discover Afro, Braids and Calypso rhythms all the way to Xhosa (storytellers), Yoruba (craftspeople) and Zulu! Ayo’s journey educates and inspires with a richness of information and key cultural elements. This book is a must-have for Black History Month!
I’m pleased to welcome author Ain Heath Drew to Scope for Imagination with a fantastic guest post!
How My Travels Inspired My Children’s Book About the African Diaspora
In the humid Colombian heat, my son and I walk up a dirt road where children play soccer, and where women dressed in frilly yellow, red, and blue dresses sell sweets. With fruit baskets perched atop their heads, they pose for pictures. Houses line the road and are abuzz with conversation and laughter. We’re in “Africa outside of Africa,” a small town settled by escaped enslaved Africans in the 1600s. My son and I proudly take photographs in front of a mural that exclaims, “I love being Black.”
This village, Palenque de San Basilio, is represented in my picture book Ayo’s Adventure. The artist Erin K. Robinson beautifully included the mural in the illustration.
Before and after I started writing Ayo’s Adventure, it’s always been a priority for me to make sure my son sees his reflection wherever we are in the world. In Colombia, we learned about the history and preservation of the first free African settlement in the Americas. In Cuba, we explored Afro-Cuban religions grounded in West African spirituality. When reading Ayo’s Adventure, children are introduced to the Yoruba religion on the page about the Orisha.
In Charleston, South Carolina, we toured the riverfront with a woman of Gullah descent. We learned about the history, resourcefulness, and language of Gullah-Geechee people. We also learned about (and sampled – yum!) the unique cuisines, which are showcased in Ayo’s Adventure, on the page about “Soul Food” — crab rice, okra stew, and cabbage.
Travels, lived experiences, and research all came together to inspire Ayo’s Adventure. Because just as valuable as the memories we’ve gathered as curious travelers, are the bits and pieces of my Black experience, including my aunt who could use Kente fabric to create anything — dresses, wide-legged pants, hats, and bags — losing my voice at the UniverSoul Circus, and the Hip-Hop that’s always been a huge part of my life’s soundtrack.
Seeing the beauty of Black people directly around me and beyond me is the foundation on which the plot of Ayo’s Adventure was built. Being able to see the worldwide community of Black people, hear the variety of languages, the diversity of traditions and cultures, and the rich history, inspired Ayo’s Adventure to be the journey that it is: one that shows all children that so much beauty rose from the ashes of the horrific Transatlantic Slave Trade, and shows Black children that they can see their reflections anywhere in the world.
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