When seven-year-old Paris resident, Ayodeji Olajide, first told his parents he wanted to write a book, they didn’t know if he was serious, and they certainly didn’t know he would pleasantly surprise them in such a wonderful way.
Ayodeji’s mother, Atinuke Olajide, said it all began when she first started writing herself.
“I’m a local business owner, and as an immigrant, starting up a business in Canada wasn’t the easiest thing to do, so of course, I faced many challenges,” she said. “I thought it was time to help other immigrants like myself, and so I wrote a book on starting up a business in Canada, and I wrote a couple on securing support and resources to continue to grow your business.”
Having watched his mother throughout the process, Ayodeji was excited when his mother’s book first arrived at their home last February.
“He would see me working on the computer and he would ask me things like, ‘mommy, what are you doing?’ and so when the book came in, he was excited for me and he loved it. He said, ‘I also want to write a book,’ but I didn’t think much of it,” recalled Atinuke. “When my second book came to the house in June, he said it again, ‘mommy, I want to write a book.’ I didn’t really know if he was serious or not, but every time he remembered or saw my book, he would tell me he wanted to write something.”
Atinuke said that she’s always encouraged literacy in her children, and has always supported Ayodeji’s love of reading and storytelling.
“Anytime we go visiting, instead of looking for a toy or video game, he would pick up a book and read,” she said. “He would also tell a lot of stories during shower time, but most of them were basically retellings of some of the cartoons he had watched. I would have to tell him, ‘that’s someone else’s story, maybe you should try telling yours,’ but it wasn’t something we were prepared for or planning for.”
At the beginning of January 2025, Atinuke eventually decided to give her son a brand new journal, thinking he would simply just write about what was happening during the day, but instead, he began to form a story.
“…It took me a while to get to reading it but he would remind his dad and I every day like, “mommy, you haven’t read my journal yet,” recalled the mother. “One morning in February I decided to read it with him because the bus was running late and when I read it, it was very nice. I saw characters I knew, it was his name and his friend’s names and it was really nice to, for the first time, see him write something that was created from his imagination and it was about adventures that he cooked up in his head.”
Atinuke eventually decided to type out her son’s book, titled Ayodeji’s Amazing Adventures, and with his story finally written out, Atinuke’s husband, Olumide, wondered if they could do anything more with their son’s story.
“I decided to bring the story to life by illustrating it and so the first step was to design the characters. I thought, “okay, he’s a black boy, so let’s come up with a black character,’” said Atinuke. “I also wanted him to be able to see himself in books because there isn’t much representation of the black culture or the black community in mainstream anything, let alone a black kid author, and so that is something we wanted to celebrate and recognize. …So when I illustrated it and the book came to life, he loved it, he was really happy.”
Knowing how much it meant to her to see her own books go from the computer to a physical copy, Atinuke had Ayodeji’s book printed.
“…I printed the first copy because I just wanted him to see his creation and he just loved it. He would hold it up and say ‘my book! Mommy, it’s my book!’” she said. “But before I knew what happened or even wrapped my head around his first book, he started writing a second one! I didn’t think that would happen, I really thought it was a one off thing.”
Atinuke said that while illustrating her son’s first book was more simple, his second book, titled The Cheerful Paintbrush Family, stumped her as far as how she would possibly illustrate a family of paintbrushes.
Taking things one step at a time, Atinuke decided to officially share her son’s first book with the world.
“I just felt like people outside our family needed to know that he had done something because I believe in encouraging people. I know for me, when I’m encouraged, I’m able to push my limits and do even more than I expected or what I hoped that I would do,” she said. “So we showed a couple of friends and people were very excited. They wanted to know how they could get a copy, so we put it on Amazon and people started to buy. We eventually decided to have a small book launch in June, invited some family and friends, and talked about the journey.”
After leaving the book launch and hearing how many people were so supportive of her son’s creation, Atinuke said she felt inspired to try illustrating The Cheerful Paintbrush Family again alongside her son. With the story’s illustrations completed Ayodeji’s second book finally came to life and was officially launched on August 25.
The parents said that while they never expected any of this to happen, they intend to keep encouraging their son to follow his passion.
“The more you can help fuel and encourage that passion, the more it grows. You can have a talent or a skill, and keep it to yourself, but I’m not sure that really does any good for people and so we want to encourage him,” said Atinuke. “One thing I’ve learned in all of this is to really create meaning of whatever request he has, especially when I see that it’s not a bad thing to do. So, it’s really been a journey and I don’t know how long he’ll want to do this, but we want to support him however we can.”
Having expressed his hopes to share his books with others, Ayodeji’s parents have been trying to get them into as many libraries as possible.
“One thing he said was, ‘mommy, I want all the kids to read my story,’ and so we’ve been trying to get the books into the local libraries,” said Atinuke. “There’s one in the public library in Kitchener and in Brantford, and we’ve actually been able to get it into a library in Nigeria where we’re from, and one in Kenya as well. It’s important for us to do this because we want to really see other kids being inspired by this, to continue being inquisitive and to ask questions.”
The second-grader, whose favourite subject is arts and crafts and currently wants to be a librarian when he grows up, said that being an author makes him feel good.
“I get to have my own fun!” he said.
When asked where he gets his inspiration for his stories, Ayodeji’s answer was simple, “I just think about what I love.”
Ayodeji has not only finished writing his third book, a project his mother says she’s already editing and looking into having it traditionally published, but is already writing the fourth.
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
