By Prisca Sam-Duru

The adventures of Sunshine & Sparkles are fresh in the book market with captivating titles, “The Many Troubles of Sunshine & Sparkles” and “The War of the Nuts”.

The children’s book series is authored by Oyinkan Medubi, a lecturer and academic researcher based in Ilorin, Kwara State. It explores themes of friendship, trust, selfishness, greed, unity, anger, etc, while employing animals to depict the human character. The book also uses the animal characters to reflect on people’s different views on coexistence in a complex society.

Published by Institute of Media Studies Ltd/GTE, Ilorin, Kwara State, the colourful books designed for young ones, are each presented in 14 chapters. While “The War of the Nuts” has 74 pages, the adventures of Sunshine, Sparkle and friends are narrated in “The Many Troubles of Sunshine and Sparkles” in 95 pages.

Chapter one of “The Many Troubles of Sunshine and Sparkles”, introduces the home of a  widow known as Mama Rio. She lives in Baka-Edadi, a town in the middle part of Nigeria’. Mama Rio keeps many animals as is typical of Nigerian families. All the animals live happily together and are more like the widow’s children, except sparkles the squirrel.

This chapter further  narrates how sunshine, Mama Rio’s beloved puppy is sent out of the home because of its inability to confront armed robbers. That particular day, armed robbers with a penchant for robbing a whole neighbourhood in one night, robs the old woman of her valuables. She is very disappointed because rather than stand up against the armed robbers, Sunshine welcomes them by wagging its tail and refusing to bark. Mama Rio’s disappointment can be seen on page 14. “Sunshine, what kind of dog are you that you can’t bark at robbers? I told you a long time ago that you will get no respect if you don’t bark…” It’s not only Mama Rio that’s pissed off, Mrs kande the leader of the snails in the snailery thinks that a real dog would have acted differently. She thinks sunshine is a ‘miserable idiot’.

As the plot develops, the author weaves how Sunshine lands in the wild world in chapter six, his sufferings, and how he ends up as the hero who identifies the robbers that caused his initial misery. His eventual return in Chapter thirteen, ‘A Reunion of a Sort’, explores the theme of forgiveness as Mama Rio welcomes him happily back into the family.

The story continues in the second book in the series- “The War of the Nuts”. In ‘Sparkles Has a Family Problem’, which is chapter one, Oyinkan shares the many troubles in sparkles’ house. The squirrels are out of nuts and Mrs Sparkles instructs Sparkles to ensure he gets nuts for the house or no sleep for him. Sparkles rushes out early in the morning to seek help from his good friend sunshine. His request results in an argument between king kong which insists Sparkles go gather nuts himself, and Mrs. Kande. Eventually, Sunshine agrees to go out in search of nuts with sparkles in the precious cart gifted to him by detective Basan.

The Chapters that follow narrate the many struggles of the two friends while in search of nuts. At some point, they are locked up and sparkles ends up trading Sunshine’s cart for their freedom; according to him. The two books under review are embedded with moral lessons. They encourage children to be honest so as to be trusted, as well as friendly with others.

Readers will notice how disappointed the animals are about sparkles lying that he traded sunshine’s cart for their freedom, rather than be honest that he got nuts in return for his family.

The book also teaches children to dream big and work towards achieving their goals no matter how impossible they seem. The leader of the fishes king kong wanting to walk like other animals, and Mrs kande the leader of the snails dreaming of flying and attempting to do so, are good examples.

Exploring themes of selfishness, the book exposes the selfish attitude of sparkles. Sparkles who is away during the robbery attack comes home to the news that sunshine has been banished for not confronting the intruders. All it does on getting home, is to check on its family. He does not care about the banished sunshine, which has been a good friend. Sparkles’ disposition is also captured in Chapter 4 of “The Many Troubles of Sunshine and Sparkles” titled, ‘Nuts’. After all the animals decide that sunshine must come back, sparkles and Mrs kande are selected to go in search of sunshine. On the way, sparkles stumbles on different kinds of nuts and greed makes him over feed. In the process, he sleeps off. He is the exact opposite of sunshine which carries his friends on his back, hence the cart gift.

Teamwork and peaceful coexistence are also emphasised in the books, as we read about the animals, looking out for each other when the need arises. Notice that in spite of all the distractions and struggles, the animals end up finding sunshine and bringing him home. Also, in the second book, the animals didn’t let sunshine lose his cart, they teamed up against the ‘rascals’, recovered the cart and also, opened the store where the bad squirrels hoarded nuts, for all the animals to feed.

The well-designed book covers compliment the apt titles of each book, creating maximum attraction for young readers. Also, the inclusion of colourful illustrations in all chapters makes reading fun-filled for young minds.

Sunshine & Sparkles adventures are recommended for everyone as it makes an exciting read for children and lovers of children’s literature.