Hi There,
This is a recap of what went down on Saturday February 3rd at the JP & JM Apartments at Barnawa, here in the Center of Learning, Kaduna. The Book Land hosted its first author, Brainbox to a book signing/reading but in this case lyrical performing event because this book is a collection of intentional pieces written with the writers 'conscience' I'm just going to be giving a quick run down on what happened that day and for the spoken word pieces, look out for subsequent posts, you'd see the pieces by each of the artist. 


It began at about 5:00pm and it was anchored by Jason, a spoken word artist and Tamar of The Book Land.

After the acquaintances were made and the guests began arriving, the beautiful poet came up on stage with a beautiful performance, (i will post her poem subsequently). She had us enthralled from hello, needless to say, she was shy but was encouraged by the audience with claps and smiles.

Next was Konquer, A Spoken Word artist who's piece was titled 'Education And Schooling'. this Piece discussed Education and Schooling in ways we had not thought of (thats what poets do right? use their gifts as tools of information) and i am proud to say i got new info from that piece. Konquer, conquered us all.

at Intervals, Our anchors kept us entertained, at least i thought so😀😀, and after that, one of the Anchors, Jason of course came up to perform his piece. i only had one thing in my head mid his performance, Rap and Poetry works together. Watching and listening to artist performing their pieces has an even better way of passing the message they intend most times other than just reading it and i confirmed it when Brainbox said artist/poets write from their conscience.

It got even better when James Apeh of Victory Camp International, came up to talk to us, He is a Motivational Speaker, A Mentor and many things. and so he spoke about The Youth and His Dreams. And although he had limited time, we or I learnt quite a lot, especially from his explanations on Goal Setting and Mentor ship.

You thinking of what you missed right? That's why I'm here😁😁

Next was the screening of #IAmNotAFailedDream Documentary by the Author, Valentine Onyeka  Ogunaka Known better as Brainbox. It was a a documentary that highlighted the effects and rewards of pulling through with our dreams and passions as youths. short but mind broadening video.
You know what they say about Reading; it widens your imaginations. Listening and Watching to that Documentary evoked thoughtful Questions.

Wondering where  thAuthor was? He was next, for the Q&A session.

On his art, he told the attentive audience on how he began, and even though, it wasn't yet welcome in the streets, he persisted because he said 'Look at the Comedy Industry today, If people like Ali Baba decided to call it quits just because years back, comedy was not paying, would he be here today'? he doesn't want to call himself one of the Pioneers of Spoken Word in Nigeria but he believes he has payed his dues and is still and he hopes that we do the same, because he says if the zeal and passion is not there, there will be days when you would not want to go on, and what happens next? he uses his work to speak out on social vices and that is why it comes to him naturally.
He had a word for every young person out here in kaduna, to believe in yourself, in what you do and work on it. 

Well, After that, we all wanted to hear him perform and he did. I'm going to post an excerpt below from one of his performances which happens to be my favorite from the book.

In Every City.

There's a dreamer in every city
There's a dreamer in you.

...
You'd find them in the home next door,
As a young single mother hold back her tears,
Because her son has said he wants to be the next top surgeon,
Even when he hasn't been to school for more than a year.
...
You'd find him in the cyber cafe, the guy surfing Jobberman
And when life says no job for you Mr Man,
He upgrades his CV, and then applies again.

You'd find them in slums, in tattered boots,
Yet with empty stomachs, they play football like professionals,
All for the attention of scouts from their dream clubs!
...

You can call 07036216162  or send a DM to @thebook_land on IG to get your copy of the book in Kaduna.

Books were purchased and signed and conversations were initiated, friends were made and we closed!

Brainbox is a Spoken Word Artist, Writer, a qualified Library and Information professional, Mentor and an Entrepreneur. He  has inspired and instructed at workshops and seminars. Also has teaching sessions with students at schools. You keep up with his work at www.iambrainbox.com


Thanks for reading, Please share your thoughts below.
You can send me emails at thebooklandng@gmail.com

Young Writers Meet

Hi There,

I was at the young Writers Meet on Saturday 10th February, which was hosted by Kaduna Start Up Weekend and Yasmin El-Rufai Foundation at the Creativity Court.

I'm going to be writing about three key things i found very educating and I'd like to share them with you. This Post is for writers, aspiring writers and Creatives who use pen and paper to share thoughts, well, they now have devices, pen and paper now sounds archaic 😀.

The first was the Commentary by Hadiza Aliko, from  House of Recovery.
She spoke extensively within a short time about Mental Illness. there were forms of illnesses she mentioned, Violence, Bullying and others and as much as they sound far fetched especially to us here in Africa, she explained, it was in existence, 7 out of every 10 are usually not stable. Now, she calls on writers, poets and creatives to do something about it. Quoting her 'Mental Illness is real, Use your pens to stimulate conversations and bring it out to the open, the mere fact that we conveniently do not talk about it doesn't mean its not there and it will disappear, use your voice as creatives'.
This means Writers in their own way can speak up against social vices with their art.

Next was Usman Shamaki with the Topic, Passion to Profit: Making A Living From Writing.

He began with a question every writer should be able to answer 'Why should you be paid for writing'?


The question also came with answers.

• As a writer you can shed more meaning on a chosen topic
• You can use words in a way that describes the mood of our generations
• You use words to plant ideas in the mind of your readers in such a way they feel, theyve always has those ideas

These few answers i got to put down, but they were a bit more and so he began the talk about how to make a living from your art. I've also written them in numbers to help make reading them easier.

1. Get over your fear of writing
2. You need to love what you do: writing
3. You need to put your name out in order to be heard: Start a blog, create a profile online (Wattpad, Medium), use your social media accounts effectively to create an online presence, he also suggested you focus on people who have a large following and get them to post your articles.
4. You don't need to publish a book to be a writer. you can edit articles, proof read, write articles, edit biographies and autobiographies. 
5. Understand your audience: in as much as you write from your thoughts. he suggests you know who you are writing for.
6. Be Knowledgeable, if you are diverse in information you can reach a wider audience.  
7. Talent is never enough. Never ever believe you are too talented, work on it, attend seminars, conferences, book clubs and book festivals.
8. Discipline is required.
9. Join a community of writers nearest to you or online.
10. Do not underestimate the power of social media, it has worked for businesses. it will work for you when used effectively.
11. There will be difficulties as a writer. Overcome them.
12. Finally, You need to develop a thick skin as a writer. do not easily get discouraged, it is better to be criticized than not at all, because it means someone is paying attention.

We listened to Zahra Umar of Jaruuma Magazine/Divorce Diaries, who also has a segment for women on BBC. Her topic was Telling Stories For Social Good.
One good thing from this speaker was the fact that she spoke a lot about her personal experiences as well as experiences with others, but she gave guidelines for people writing to address social vices for social good which I'd share below.

• When writing for social good, you should have a purpose.
• You need to have a thick skin because there will be lots of criticisms and bitterness from people who sometimes do not understand or delibrately misunderstand your purpose and choose to antagonize you for that.
• As a writer, you need to have a job that sustains you, until your writing skills pay off.
• Learn, Keep at what you do always. Be consistent. You should go out meet people and share thoughts and experience, and also keep an open mind because personal opinions as a writer for social good must be suppressed.
• You have to be careful because you carry trust. people who come to you with their experiences trust you enough to tell you, you shouldn't betray it.
• Your write ups should make people reflect a lot and be moved to either talk about it or do something to address it.
• Your write up should be entertaining as well as passing a message across.
• Be true to yourself, Be yourself and don't doubt yourself
• And finally, Hone your craft.

While listening to the three speakers, i noticed they repeated some things in different ways though: writers should write to pass messages, they should develop thick skins, they should also work on themselves, and these are things we should focus on wholly.

There was a prose and poetry competition and winners and runner ups were called out to perform.

There was also a discussion on blogging, meet and greet and some more. it was enlightening and the energy was infectious, hopefully we will get to attend more of this.

Thanks for reading. please let me know your thoughts in the comments 
The Book Land is a readers and writers community, Interested in our Book Club?
You can contact us on our email thebooklandng@gmail.com or call us on 07036216162.

BROKEN

 

 

 

 

This is a story of a young girl who was abused sexually by her uncle several times, with her innocence lost, she devised a means to kill, not just him but his entire family. 

Written by Malami Adekunle

 

 

Her pain was your glory

Your pain will be her redemption’

Her innocence was food for his ego, watching her struggle beneath him made him feel like a man.

He smiles at her tears, her pain as he forces her legs apart and forcefully penetrates her, pretending as if he didn’t hear her desperate pleas of “Uncle please don’t!”, “Uncle no I beg you in the name of God! Please don’t do this!”. This always brought a wicked satisfied smile to his face.

And when he was done, He’d tell her;

“Clean yourself up and go make me dinner”

As he swaggered out of her room and when she didn’t do his bidding, he’d smack, slap and throw her around screaming;

“I own you! You’re mine and you must do as I say! You hear me! You must obey me”.

Her innocence now long vanished, she’d just have a distant look on her face as he had his way, and before he asked she’d already be off to the kitchen to prepare his meal. Unsurprised by the recent developments, he’d smile to himself knowing he’d broken her spirit.

But the devil does not always wear Prada, at times the devil is a 16 year old girl who has been raped for the best part of 6 years. Her youth and innocence taking a never to return vacation to the prison yard of pain, regret and betrayal.

He was shocked at how his wife and two daughters had mysteriously died in quick succession without any prior illness. He was even more surprised as his niece came to offer herself to him like a burnt offering. 

She said “Uncle fcuk me and ease your pain”.

The lust in his eyes didn’t let him see the knife with a wrapped handle she’d dropped at the base of the bed just where her hand could reach.

As she started riding him, she confessed to slowly poisoning his wife and kids so no one suspected a thing. She said she had told his wife about how he raped her every night but she didn’t do anything about it, I guess she figured if you were feeding your demons on me, then she’d be free from your torturous punches.  I can’t blame her really but she had to die and your children’s death was a sweet revenge of the future you took from me and they carried your DNA, can’t have little pedophiles roaming the streets.

She fed her strength off the anger and horror look on his face. Just as he was about to start saying something, she swiftly moved for the knife and even more swiftly stabbed him in the chest multiple times.

She removed the knife from his chest and brought the edge to her lips, licking just enough blood off it. She closed her eyes and rocked her head backwards, savoring the sweet taste of revenge and then she stabbed him again.

She smiled to herself as he was bleeding helplessly and said;

“O! Yes I remember. I have to go get your dinner”.

Then she walked out of the room swaying seductively as he watched on from the bed helplessly breathing his last breathe.

When she returned, she had cleaned herself up. Then she took his phone and dialed 911, faking a cry as she spoke;

“There’s been a murder at our house! Help!! Please come quick”.

She proceeded to scatter the room as if a scuffle had just occurred in it, then she sat in front of the door and started faking crocodile tears.

She felt satisfied, this plan had taken her four years to plan and execute and now the bastard is no more. Maybe now, she can sleep in peace.

 

 

We think its a beautiful horror story

No means No, say no to Rape, Violence and Abuse.

 

You can follow him on Instagram for more @fiezie92

Chinua Achebe's THINGS FALL APART - The Review

Hello there,
In this article, you're going to be seeing two things, The Book Land in pictures and the Book review in words,  you might have read this book a long time ago, or may never have, but this is the review and our thoughts as a club.
Read on and let us know what you think at the end of it.

The book 'Things Fall Apart' apart from being a revealing book, is a classic, it won tons of award and lots of nominations. It comprises of 25 chapters, and the story spans around a young man named Okonkwo, who at a tender age began to fend for his family 'he was forced to become an adult as a teenager by circumstances', in the words of a member.

It was written in a fully traditional Ibo setting, in a village called Umuofia. The men of this village were known for Farming Yams. the number of yams in your barn showed how much of a man you were, but Okonkwo was that and more. He was a wrestler, and at 18, he had defeated Amalinze the cat, who had stayed undefeated for seven years. He had a family, three wives But his success was fueled by one man, his father, Unoka. We are told that his father was 'lazy and improvident and was quite incapable of thinking about tomorrow', which is quite strange because most villagers were known for their entrepreneurial spirit and since he couldnt provide for his family and was constantly in debt, okonkwo swore not to be anything like his father.

There was an instance where a man from Mbaino village killed a woman from Umofia, the wife of Ogbuefi Udo on the market day and so Mbaino had to choose between a war or restitution, they chose the latter, which came in form of a young boy named Ikemefuna and a virgin. the virgin to replace the widower whose wife was killed.
Ikemefuna came to live with Okonkwo and his family before the council of elders decide what to do with him.

Umofia had a sound justice system, they had the supreme court of the Nine Egwugwus believed by the villagers to be ancestral spirits, when in fact they were men of the village in disguise. 'Each of the nine Egwugwus represented a village of the clan and were feared by all villagers. Okonkwo was one of them, but throughout this book, when Okonkwo committed crimes, he was punished duly according to the laws of the land. and so we noticed that, though villagers, the had a sound justice system. Nobody lived above the law.

He committed crimes, and paid the price accordingly but one which stood out was when he killed  a boy mistakenly, during the funeral celebration of Ezeudu. it was a mistake but it earned his family and him and exile from Umofia for seven years and it was  after he left, the missionaries made their first and thus subsequent visits.

Okonkwo did well for himself in Umofia and in exile in Mbanta, where he stayed with his mothers kinsmen but he was a rigid man, but he had a soft spot for Ezinma the daughter of his third wife, the book tells us, 'He never stopped regretting that Ezinma was a girl' and for that Nwoye, his oldest son, disliked his principles, and so, in the same way Okonkwo rejected his fathers ways, his son did the same, if this pattern evolved because of the nature of the father/son relationship or it was more than a generational conflict, we would never know. but we know for sure that Nwoye chose the ways of the missionaries over the ways of the culture he had grown into.

The Missionaries, came gradually to survey the Lands and eventually, gradually convinced the villagers of the existence of a God above, which they said was bigger and better than the gods they worshiped and revered so much. There were two ministers who came. Mr Brown, patient, easy going and always ready to listen. Mr Smith, was the exact opposite, punished almost immediately and felt His God was not to be taken lightly with.

But when Okonkwo returned to Umofia, neither the church the white man had set up or the villagers appealed to him, everyone had gone weak in his opinion and had forgotten the sacred values of the land. And so, he spoke to his clansmen violently, and they listened to him with respect,  but they had destroyed the church of the Oyinbo and when the District Commissioner invited the leaders of Umofia to talk, they were arrested, treated like prisoners and asked to pay a fine of two hundred and fifty bags of cowries because their clan had destroyed the church.

Okonkwo was choked with hate while imprisoned and even more hate, when the fine was paid and they were released and so, when the messengers of the District Commissioner came to Umofia again, he drew his matchet thoughtlessly and 'it descended twice and the mans head lay beside his uniformed body' but the other messengers escaped which meant trouble for Umofia. Okonkwo, did not live to see the trouble he caused  because '...they came to the tree from which Okonkwo's body was dangling, and they stopped dead'. he had committed suicide, which an abominable act in Umofia.

Okonkwo, hated his father so much, but they both died similar deaths. abominable and the earth goddess could not receive them into the earth. 


The book has many sides, twists and turns but one thing we took from it was that, even though the White man thought they brought us civilization, they met us civilized. and the writer used the Ibo people to drive his point. They had a justice system that was fair. they toiled and tilled the land and harvested for food. And they looked up to the gods they believed in and they taught their children values.

Thank you for reading.
Special Thanks to Pintv Africa for our pictures and Chop Chop Eatout for the snacks
We meet once in a month to review and discuss a book over delicious pastries and tea or drinks, as per choice. please contact further inquiries about The Book Land on 07036216162.

FIVE KEY BENEFITS OF READING

 Hello there, 

Trust you're having a beautiful Thursday, I'm going to be writing about the benefits of reading on this post. Although it was written by JOHN GRISHAM, it will be explained further by me. I've listed them down below and ill explain them further after the list. 

11.    Increased knowledge

22.    Expanded horizons

33.    Improved vocabulary

44.    Sharpened thinking

55.    Enhanced empathy

11. Increased Knowledge: As a person who reads or as as a person who has made up his/her mind to begin, you must know that for every book you pick up to read there is something new to learn. might be novels, textbooks, or religious books. the aim is that by the last page of that book. you have learnt at least one new thing that you may or may not even put to use in your everyday life, but trust me, that knowledge will come in handy some day. 

  2. Expanded Horizons: to expand your horizons usually is to open yourself up to new opinions and ideas, or to experience or learn new things. Now there are different ways to expand one's horizons, it could be traveling or in this case, reading. when you pick a book to read, you have agreed to learn or experience another persons opinion. it doesn't mean you have to agree with what the writer says that is why we have people for or against an opinion.

  3. Improved Vocabulary: when reading, it is advisable to have a dictionary by your side or better still in your device which technology has made even easier. you can download one into your mobile device and walk about with it. Which means for every new word you uncover, you can search for the meaning and learn it. you have improved by one word that has stuck!. For me, when i learn a new word, i talk about it as often as i can, in conversations, in instant messaging, that way i get familiar. trust me, it works!

  4. Sharpened Thinking: Google says, "if you sharpen your senses, understanding or skills, you become better at noticing things, thinking and doing somethings". And of course one of the ways to sharpen these is by reading and paying attention to those things you have read. For example, you pick a book on Purpose, you can read and apply it to your daily life and even tweak some principles to work better for you.

  5. Enhanced Empathy: Empathy is basically the ability to put oneself in someone else's shoes. its trying to feel what they are feeling an understanding of why they are feeling it. For example if you read 'The Fault In Our Stars' by John Greene, "A Story about Love, Cancer, Pain and Death. You'd understand the story of every other sick cancer patient out there. i literally cried all night reading that book.

  There a lot more other reasons on why you should pick up a book and read, but before then, feed on these five and i hope you enjoyed reading. 

 LOUD SILENCE is the story of a young and beautiful woman called ONOME, who is truly heartbroken and has vowed that no man will disrespect her again. But the day she makes that vow she flags down the taxi of the most annoying man she has ever met, except he does not drive a taxi for a living as she thought.

He is Andrew and although she never gave him as much as a second glance when she dropped from his car, they meet again in a family meeting, and there's more to him than she thought at first.

This is indeed LOUD SILENCE.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Radiant Phoebe is a Psychologist, a writer and a coach. She  graduated from Nasarawa State University, Keffi. She loves reaching out to youths especially ladies and is passionate about bringing out the best in others. She is a fashion designer and an entrepreneur.
You can connect with her on
Facebook: Omiwole Phoebe
Instagram: @radiantphoebe

you can send also us messages on our social media platforms to request an ebook version of this book.
Facebook: thebookland
Instagram: @thebook_landor call 07036216162.

Dreams wake me!

Valentine Onyeka Ogunaka is a seasoned spoken word artist.
He is many things in one person, mentor, role model, a librarian and a business man.
He has spoken in schools seminars and even talk shows.
He is the author of the best seller 'Dreams Wake Me' a collection of poems from the journey of his #iamnotafaileddream voyage.

This book is available with us in kaduna. You can call us on 07036216162, or send us a message on our social media pages
Instagram: @thebook_land
Facebook: the book land.

Read. Lead. Succeed!