Reviews

Children will enjoy reading about Amadi's life in the village, depicted in the earth-toned, intimate scenes. It's a nice reversal that young children will be able to grasp - what looks exotic and faraway to one person is a place where someone else lives. —Booklist

... A celebration of literacy that takes us back to the yearning and hunger that made us readers, while giving us a new world that we will yearn and hunger to learn more about, no matter how young–or old–we may be.  —PaperTigers Blog

An important addition to any library, this offering fills a necessary niche for current-day stories from other cultures and focuses attention on reading as an important and satisfying accomplishment. —School Library Journal

Purposeful, yet without the heavy didacticism of some books on the topic of literacy, this tale shines a welcome light on cultural differences. —Kirkus Reviews

A reminder of how just one little book can change a persons entire life!

...I believe she [Katia Novet Saint-Lot] is one of the most inspiring and amazing picture book authors in these times of global awareness. —Bees Knees Reads

Amadi has misplaced pride about what it means to be an Igbo man—a counter-cultural resonance that will make intuitive sense to minority boys in American classrooms—but he is smart enough to formulate questions and know what he needs to do to find answers...Author Katia Novet Saint-Lot is an avid lifelong reader, so it makes sense that her first book would tackle this all-important topic. —ForeWord Magazine

The initial resistance to read that Amadi exudes is probably a feeling that all young children might be able to relate to and the fact that the story can eventually inspire them to read is the most wonderful and powerful thing about this book! ...Literacy is a heavy subject and to translate it to young children is a daunting task. But Katia Novet Saint-Lot has effortlessly and wonderfully accomplished this endeavour. —The Saffron Tree

I'd recommend [Amadi's Snowman] for a reluctant reader, because children can relate to Amadi in the beginning, and it might just alter their perception about literacy in the end...—Bri Meets Books

Amadi cannot understand why his mother is so bent on having him learn how to read. He knows his numbers, and that’s quite enough to become a businessman, in the true Igbo tradition. Or so he thinks. On the day he runs to the market to escape her, Amadi makes several encounters that will open new worlds for him, and forever change the way he looks at books.

Counting the little changes writers bring to their stories when they revise, tweaking a word here, a sentence there, I wrote nine different versions of Amadi’s Snowman. The very first draft showed Amadi looking at the picture book while hiding underneath M. Ogbu’s stall at the market, and the boy all bundled up inside the pages spoke back to him. So, it began as a fantasy story.

The first editor I sent it to wrote back to tell me that she loved the premise, but would I ground it in a more realistic setting? We were still living in Nigeria, and mail took weeks, sometimes months to reach me. My husband brought me the letter late, one night, as he came back from work. I was already in bed, but ran to my desk, grabbed a pen, and started scribbling furiously on the back of the printed pages. That’s how the character of Chima was born. Unfortunately, by the time I sent the new version to that editor, she had left the publisher and I could never find her again.

A few months later, I received an email from Tilbury House telling me they liked the new version of my story - I’d sent them both - and were considering publishing it. They would confirm as soon as they could. Alas, a couple of weeks later, another email told me that with the war in Iraq and the drastic cuts in school library budgets, they couldn’t publish my story at the moment. I was crushed, as you may imagine.

I continued to receive rejection letters from publishing houses. But I believed in Amadi’s story, and I continued to work on it, revising, polishing, and submitting it again and again...

Finally, on November 22, 2006, I received an email from Audrey Maynard, at Tilbury House, asking if the story was still available, as they would like to publish it in 2008 ! Can anyone think of a better Thanksgiving present, all the way from America?

Amadi’s first name was Ifeanyi. Do you find it hard to pronounce? Let me help you.

I - FEY - AH - NYI with the first letter sounding like the I for India, where I now live. It means, “with God, nothing is impossible.”

The concern was that Ifeanyi would be too difficult to pronounce, and I was asked to find another name for my character. That was hard. I had lived with my boy through many drafts and revisions over the months and years. It felt almost the same as giving a new name to a child of mine. I spent an entire night on the Internet, searching Igbo names, (I wanted it to sound nice, of course, but also to go well with Ifeanyi), and finally, I found Amadi.

Amadi is a short for Amadioha, the Igbo God of Thunder and Lightning in traditional religion, and it means, “God is the true road for everybody.” Other meanings seem to be “rejoice” and “freeborn” one not born into a social caste or in bondage.

This box full of books reached me in May 2008. Overall, from the first idea to that joyful moment, the whole process lasted about six years. Yep! Patience is the name of the game.

But let’s go back to the beginning : One evening, in 2002, my husband came back from the office bursting with stories - and frustration - about all the young boys who dropped out of school so they could earn quick money doing street business.

The seed was planted.