Your West African Child Is the Hero of This Storybook

Upload one photo, choose an art style, and your West African child becomes the hero of an original storybook — coils, cornrows, puffs or twists drawn the way they really look. The story is set wherever your family’s life is: Abuja, Atlanta, or both.

Why representation matters for West African and diaspora children

A child growing up between Lagos and Houston, Accra and London, or Dakar and Paris learns early that most picture books were not drawn with them in mind. When West Africa appears in children’s publishing at all, it tends to be flattened into one place — a savanna, a sunset, a lion — rather than the region of cities, coastlines, villages and languages you know it to be. A girl whose grandmother lives in Abidjan does not recognize herself in a book that treats the whole continent as one safari.

The real texture of these families is ordinary and specific. It is an Akan day name — Kofi for a Friday-born boy, Ama for a Saturday-born girl — sitting next to an English one on the birth certificate. It is every grown-up being “Auntie” or “Uncle” whether or not they are related. Small things, and exactly the things a stock picture book leaves out.

Children build their sense of what they can be from the heroes they recognize. When the hero has your child’s name, your child’s face and your family’s rhythms, the story stops being about someone like them and becomes about them. Akoni means “hero” in Yoruba, and the name was chosen on purpose: every West African child deserves an adventure in which being from Kumasi or Freetown is simply part of who the hero is, not the subject of the story.

What Akoni does for West African families

Everything starts with one photo. You upload a single clear picture of your child, and Akoni draws that child — face, hair, skin — as the hero of the book and keeps them consistent on every page. Hair is drawn with the texture and the parting it actually has; skin tone and eye color come from the photo, not from a darker preset on a stock avatar. You see a free preview of the cover and opening pages before paying. Your photo is deleted within 24 hours and is never shared or used to train AI models.

You choose the look from nine art styles: Whimsical Watercolor, Bold Cartoon, Soft Pastel, Anime / Ghibli, Modern Flat, Pixel Art, Retro Golden Book, 3D Cinematic and Paper-Cut Collage. The story is written for your child’s name, age and chosen theme, so a bedtime book for a two-year-old Aminata and a space adventure for a nine-year-old Chinedu are not the same story with the names swapped. Interests, a lesson or a setting can be added, so the market in the story is the one your family actually shops at.

Family and friends enter the story the way you describe them. On the create page, open “Deeper customization” and use “Include in the Story” to name Grandpa in Bamako, a big cousin, a best friend from school or the family dog; each is written into the story and illustrated from your words. Only the hero is drawn from a photo — one hero per book.

If part of your family reads in French or Portuguese, a bilingual edition puts English and that language side by side on every spread. Spanish and Mandarin are also available; those are the four bilingual languages Akoni offers today.

A keepsake that travels between homes

Diaspora families are spread across continents, and the book is built with that in mind. The digital PDF is ready in minutes after purchase, so the story can be on a phone back home and read together over a call the same evening it is made. Printed books are 8” × 8” square, in softcover or hardcover, printed by Gelato and shipped to 55 countries, including Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa as well as the US, Canada, the UK and most of Europe; printed books ship in 5–7 business days, with shipping included in the price.

A dedication page opens the book: a warm note written for your child by the story writer and signed from whoever you choose — “From Auntie Fatou” or “From Nana” — so the giver’s name stays on the first page for good. After the 16 illustrated story pages come bonus pages — an activity page, discussion questions, a certificate, a coloring page and fun facts — and every order includes the Hero Pack: free printables starring your child, including coloring pages, wall art, stickers and bookmarks.

Prices are $9.99 for the digital PDF, $29.99 for softcover and $39.99 for hardcover; a bilingual edition adds $10 to any format, and a bundle of three hardcovers is $99. Every book passes automated checks that the art matches the story and the hero stays consistent, and printed books get a human review before printing. If your child does not light up when they see themselves in the book, email us within 30 days of delivery and we refund you in full — and they keep the book.

For a first birthday, a naming-ceremony gift, a first day of school in a new country, or a package for grandparents who have not yet met the newest hero in person, this is a book that gets read, kept and eventually handed down.