New Telegraph

Towards stronger ties of kinship

Book title: Family Ties

Author: Paulette I. Anana

Publisher: Amazon

Number of pages: 45

Year of publication: 2022

Book Reviewer: Tony Okuyeme

Family life contributes immensely to an individual’s happiness, only in a happy home life can be complete and contentment can be found,” notes Dorotea S. Koppliln. A family is the first contact for everyone who came into this world.

 

The memories, lifestyle, connections and impacts go a long way in who we are today. Paulette I. Anana’s ‘Family Ties’ is a collection of three short stories written in first person narrative presents spellbinding tales of family memories which showcased different scenarios of family situations.

 

The collection deals with support, humility, godly lifestyle, love and encouragement that occur in families. This 45-page collection has the following three short stories; ‘Father-To-Child’, ‘Mother-To-Child’, and ‘The Kindred’. All the three stories are spellbinding comedies. The first story, ‘Father-To-Child’, is divided into four chapters.

 

The story is about a family with four brilliant boys and a lazy, dull daughter. After the term examination of Mr. Eze’s children, he did well to encourage them to do better next term by giving them gifts, including Chiamaka his only daughter who failed her exams.

But after the Christmas celebration in his house. He made sure he spent time with his children in preparation for the next term, most especially, Chiamaka. He made sure she took part in house chores and developed a good reading lifestyle. Mr. Eze’s deliberate tutoring made a good impact on Chiamaka, his only daughter, as she was able to pass her exams excellently well in the subsequent terms.

 

The second story, ‘Mother-To-Child’, divided into five chapters, is set in King Peter’s palace. A humbled and respectful king always loved and respected by his people had two queens. Queen Sarah and Queen Bisola, they both had three children each.

But Queen Bisola was the only one with a male child which qualifies her son as the next king of the kingdom. Queen Sarah brought up her children morally and her impact on her children made them successful princesses worthy of emulation in and outside the kingdom.

While Queen Bisola went with her business of spending money lavishly, connecting with other queen from other kingdom, and neglecting the motherhood goals to bring up her children morally. Queen Sarah’s children were able to influence Queen Bisola’s children morally. Unfortunately, Prince Elijah became the bad egg of the family.

After the king’s death, problems arose as to who to ascend the throne, the spirit of the late king solved the puzzle as he directed the chief of the elders in his dream to appoint his son-in-law, prince Chinedu as the next king. The third story, ‘The kindred’, is divided into four chapters.

Tade took it upon himself to take care of his siblings after the death of his parents few years after his wedding to Sade, his wife who turned out to be jealous of his siblings after marriage.

Seun has always discouraged and challenged Tade, her husband not to give attention to his siblings, Taiwo and Kehinde who were still in the university. Tade secretly took care of his siblings with his wife knowing in order to enjoy peace in his home.

All this while, Tade’s children knew of their mother’s bad attitude towards their aunties and how she always wanted to drive the attention of her husband to her own family needs. Few years later, Tade’s siblings, Taiwo and Kehinde graduated and travelled overseas to start their life and things worked well for them. Unfortunately, Tade died but his twin siblings were kind enough to take care of his children due to the fact that he never listened to his wife’s bad advices not to take care of them back then.

The three beautiful short stories in this book explore the scenarios that happen in different families.

The author can do well in making the presentation of the book writing in simpler and well organised manner, as this is going to help the readers to flow and draw connections.

On the part of the writer, it will help eliminate stress and improve productivity.

I am inspired and wowed by the power of the author’s storytelling skills. Anana’s ‘Family Ties’ is a recommended handbook for every family to read, meditate and work on their flaws with the mindset of impacting their family members in a positive way.

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