If my hair could talk

7-year-old Akoma lives with her parents in a small town near Hamburg. In Twi – a language spoken in Ghana – Akoma means ‘heart’. Akoma’s father often says to her: ‘With your Akoma, the world is open to you.’ However, Akoma’s big heart reaches its limits when strangers grab her hair without asking.

Children’s book, hardcover

Reading age: 4 years and older

Hardback edition: 44 pages

We love it because

DIVERSE/INCLUSIVE

The authors and illustrators at Gratitude Verlag do a great job when it comes to presenting stories in which the most diverse people, with different backgrounds, physical limitations, sexual orientations and religions find and recognise themselves in books.

About the publisher

gratitude Verlag was founded in 2019 by the actress, speaker and author Dayan Kodua. It stands for the communication of diversity and empowerment through stories and is one of the few publishing houses that only publish books with BPoC heroines. By identifying with these diverse heroes, children and young people of all backgrounds are encouraged to discover their own potential. In this way, gratitude Verlag actively contributes to a diverse German literary landscape and a positively developing society.

At the same time, gratitude Verlag would like to help BPoC newcomer authors and illustrators gain more visibility. Because if it is already difficult to gain a foothold in the literary world as a person who has been part of the white majority society since birth, it means a completely different kind of struggle for BPoC authors and illustrators, it requires a different kind of courage to achieve the same goal. gratitude Verlag recognises this and wants to give precisely these people the opportunity to reach children and young people with their words or pictures.