The acclaimed author shares the inspiration for her children’s literature debut, her new pen name, and how she was reminded by her 8-year-old daughter that writing for youngsters isn’t as easy as it looks.
After giving mature readers powerful literature for well over two decades, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has published her first children’s book, Mama’s Sleeping Scarf, under the pseudonym Nwa Grace-James, a dedication to her late parents. Based on her own family, the story is a visually stunning, unsullied tale about Chino, a little girl who finds joy and comfort in playing with her mother’s head scarf.
With striking illustrations by the immensely talented Joelle Avalino, the book follows Chino on a happy journey after she removes the scarf from her mother’s head. Used as a way to remember her mother while she is away at work, Chino lovingly shapes the scarf into a toy that she takes along for an “ordinary day” spent with her grandparents.
But the comforting familiarity of the scarf, along with her grandparents’ regular routines, is precisely why the book is so special.
In a recent interview, Adichie explains how the story was inspired by the strong bond she shared with her parents (her father passed away in 2020 and her mother a year later), how much they adored her daughter and a time when her daughter used her headscarf to play a game.
“It really came about because one day, my daughter pulled my scarf off my head. It was just this lovely moment for me. She began touching my hair in braids. She was maybe a year old then. When she was a bit older, she would take my scarf and play with it. So I started thinking, “Maybe this would be a good idea for a book,” she recounts. “I like that this book makes something that’s very specific to Black women ordinary — a scarf. It’s the kind of thing that’s so ordinary for so many Black women. But for people who are not Black, it’s not an ordinary thing because they don’t know exactly what it is. And I think that we start to know one another more when these ordinary things in our lives become ordinary to other people and familiar to them.”
Whether it’s a silk scarf, satin bonnet or any other fabric, for Black women, the journey of hair coverings is one that goes beyond practical methods. It holds centuries-old communal complexities so deeply rooted that they’ve become built-in, normalized feelings of security. Its royal beginnings as prominent expressions of Black pride and identity in the early 1700s sub-Saharan Africa changed when its inhabitants were forced to embark on voyages to Europe, North and South America. On these continents, head coverings faced a new symbolism; one with imposed, codified white supremacist ideals that reigned supreme well into the start of the 20th century. It wasn’t until the Black Power Movement of the 1960s and 70s that the reclaiming of its heritage began to disempower oppressive metaphors and establish a reconnection to its cultural roots. But all the while, it never ceased to serve as an intimate nexus between generations that always provided sheltered familiarity and reassurance, much like Chino’s scarf.
Adichie says she sometimes jokes about feeling proud for authoring such a tender, pure book. For years, she was asked why she didn’t write for children, but she’d often express concerns about how her vision wasn’t necessarily suitable. “I would say in jest that my vision is too dark, and I love children, so I do not want to be held responsible for their psychological harm in any way. I just felt that my artistic vision wasn’t necessarily child-friendly.”
The award-winning novelist has also revealed how the writing process for children’s literature isn’t as effortless as one would think, something she learned firsthand when composing Mama’s Sleeping Scarf. “I thought, I’ll just do it in a week and send it off,” she admitted. “It took me a year and a half.”
Adichie had to make three drafts because her 8-year-old daughter rejected the first two. She described them as “boring,” succinct yet dynamic instruction that cued her to do the same for Scarf and may also help to frame the heart of the second children’s book she is currently planning.
For now, the author’s deepest wish for her debut children’s novel is to bring a little light and well-being to parents as well as to their children.
“I want it to be the kind of book that you read and when you’re done, your spirit has just ever so slightly lifted…there’s something about just imagining a little Black child, particularly a little Black African child, opening this book and seeing something so familiar to them; just the thought of it makes me happy.
Mama’s Sleeping Scarf is available for sale at all major retailers, including the following Black-owned bookstores:
