Toni-Toni, Toni; Once Upon A Time ...
Welcome to the imaginative folktales and fables of Cameroon! As a child growing up in a small village in Cameroon, we didn’t have Televisions. Our evening entertainment was to sit around with our older siblings and listen to stories that had been told for generations. To our young minds, they were like cartoons, we imagined the characters and their adventures. On another level though we were learning what it meant to be part of a community. All these stories have at their core aspects of character: ancient wisdom, humility, and responsibility. With most families now having tv and access to internet, these stories of our culture have been disappearing. Not even I could remember any of them and had to ask my parents to record and send them to me via WhatsApp. I started collecting the stories about a year ago. Had I waited one more year many of them would have been lost permanently as my aunt who remembered the most passed away suddenly in December of 2019. Thankfully I have them now to share with my own children, and through this book, you can share them with your family. These stories are part of who we are and need to be shared with generations to come. That’s why I have collected and retold them in this beautifully illustrated children’s book. These stories are a treasure map for a new generation. They give young families a glimpse of an ancient and mysterious time when animals, villagers, princesses, and kings shared the world and discovered wisdom. 10% of the proceeds from each book will go toward supporting Hepatitis B and Liver cancer research in Africa.
About Henri Nkuepo (Charlotte, North Carolina Author)
Henri Nkuepo was born in Cameroon in 1985, to subsistence farmers, and he grew up in Bamengui, a small village in West Cameroon. After obtaining his high school diploma in 2005, Henri attended the University of Yaoundé-II and obtained his Bachelor of Law in 2008. In 2009, Henri traveled to South Africa to study English and in January 2010, he enrolled in the University of Western Cape's Master of Law (LLM). He graduated in March 2011 and his thesis won the runner-up price in the LLM category of the Ismail Mahomed Law Reform Essay Competition. In August 2011, while working on his PhD, Henri traveled to the U.S. as a Visiting Scholar at the University of Iowa. After a year at the University of Iowa, Henri traveled to Washington D.C. in September 2012 to work as an in-house counsel with the World Bank Group. While working fulltime, Henri suspended his PhD research program and enrolled in the George Washington University's LLM in International Law and graduated in May 2014. Today, Henri is a Risk Management professional and he currently lives in Charlotte, N.C.