Photography by Jessica Turner
Adjwoa Tyehimba misspelled “detention” in the fifth-grade spelling bee at the Dallas charter school she attended.
That cringe-worthy life event inspired the plot of her first children’s book, The Principle of Balance, which was published Jan. 1.
Tyehimba, 30, is co-owner of Pan African Connection, the Oak Cliff bookstore founded by her late father, and she also works full time as a freelancer teaching food-safety certification classes all over the region.
“I’m a big balance person,” she says. “I’m like, ‘Uh, I need a nap before I can do the next thing’ or ‘I need to study before I go out.’”
She initially approached publisher Melanin Origins with an idea for a children’s book about bringing her nieces to the legendary homecoming festivities at her alma mater, the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.
But co-owner Louie T. McClain II asked her to write for their series meant to advance first-time authors. The MA’AT series promotes the principles of the Egyptian goddess Ma’at: truth, justice, harmony and balance.
Tyehimba’s book is about a girl named after the author, Adgy, who’s competing in her school’s spelling bee. The pages compose an acrostic of the word she’s spelling, “balance,” starting with “B” for the bike her father taught her to ride.
“To be honest, it wasn’t that hard to write,” she says. “They gave me the number of pages and how many sentences could be on each page.”
It took her about a month to write the story. The artwork, by Xander A. Nesbitt, took a couple of months, and production and printing took another month or two.
“The hardest part is finding someone to help you publish the book,” she says.
Tyehimba publicized pre-ordering on her social media channels, and by the time the book dropped, it already had reached the top 10 in Amazon’s book category “children’s African folk tales.”
Seeing her own book listed under some of the titles Pan African Connection carries made her feel accomplished.
“I started to cry,” she says. “The publisher was blown away because there were so many pre-orders.”
Spoiler alert: At the end of the book, Adgy accomplishes what her namesake didn’t. She wins the spelling bee.
Now the book is published, Tyehimba says she feels confident in writing her “dream book,” the one about her nieces and homecoming.
Tyehimba has a degree in inland fisheries biology, and she’s a frequent traveler. Wherever she goes, she says she always spends her money at small businesses. And the same goes with literary spending.
“Support local authors,” she says. “Even if it’s not me. If you know someone who’s writing a book, and you have $15 to spend with a local author, just go ahead and do it.”
Find Adjwoa Tyehimba’s The Principle of Balance ($15 hardcover) at Pan African Connection, 4466 S. Marsalis Ave.
