Sold out history book success for mother and son team

Friday, 9th September 2022 — By Monique Rubins

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Mother and son duo with their books

A MOTHER and son writing duo are enjoying success with a unique journey through black history.
Tayma Hunte, 30, and her 10-year-old son Isaiah Marche-Hunte, a pupil at Torriano School, are behind three I Am books – with more to come.
They wrote them together at their home near Caledonian Road.
The buzz around the books grew after social media support from Swiss, a member of chart-topping British group So Solid Crew and the brains behind the Black Pound Day store in Westfield.
He launched the project in June 2020 to encourage the public to support black businesses one day a week.
Swiss praised the book on Instagram, where he has 28,000 followers, for “uniquely merging figures from different periods that made an impact in their relevant parts of the world.”
“We’ve been really fortunate,” Ms Hunte, a freelance interior designer, said. “The first day that we had our books in [the Black Pound Store] was the launch. It was open Saturday and Sunday, and on the Sunday we received an email saying there were only two books left.”
I Am Rooted widens the lens on black history to take in the positive stories which are so often subsumed beneath the painful history of slavery.

Some of the books they have written
Children will learn that the Black Panther Party not only fought for civil rights but also played a huge role in black civil society by providing health care assistance and food for families in need.
And readers will discover figures like Jean-Michel Basquiat, the first African-American artist to achieve global success in the 1980s, using his art for activism and black empowerment.
Tayma and Isaiah are now looking to turn the spotlight on inspirational black women, though they’re still deciding who will feature in the final version.
“Although the books focus on black history, we also want more children to read them because we think it’s important for all children to see black representation in books and for them to learn something new,” Tayma said.
She is also working on a fiction aimed at adults.
The mother and son have launched a crowd­funding campaign to support their new projects.
To support them go to: ww.indiegogo.com/
projects/diverse-children-s-book-series#/

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