A long long time ago in a world far far away… Actually not that long ago; it was in 1992 that Babajide Oluwadare was born in Akure, Ondo State Nigeria. From there Jide moved to Atlanta, Georgia with his family- this was a difficult decision but since he was only 5 years old at the time he decided it was best to stay close to family. After-school time was the highlight of Jide’s pre-college life but not because he wasn’t doing well in school – He got all A’s and graduated 2nd in his class and surprisingly his parents didn’t ask whether the guy who graduated 1st had two heads. After-school time was the best time for Jide because that was when he could retreat into his imagination and create elaborate stories with toys and action figures that he accumulated over the years- this was a sort of therapy to recover from the day because these were the days before #WakandaForever when “African booty scratcher” and “ *click**click* ” were the viral hashtags.
Fast forward to college when Jide decided to drop his Microbiology major with Pre-Med intent and pursue his dream of being an illustrator for Pixar by joining the School of Fine Arts. However this decision only lasted the length of a phone call with his elder sister – his parent’s never even knew… well until now I guess. I’m sure the office of the register has never witnessed such indecisiveness from a college stu… actually they probably got that all the time.
Now Jide uses his love for Nigerian culture, storytelling ability, and artistic passion to create educational and fun books for Yoruba children. His dream is a world where all languages in Nigeria are celebrated and enjoyed all over the world. He is currently working to make this dream a reality while pursuing a medical degree – mostly because law school was too much book and an engineering degree was too much math.
Follow me on my journey to accomplish my dream at Jideoluwadare.com