Review of the book titled Sweet Sixteen.

Title: sweet sixteen
Author: Bolaji Abdullahi
Publisher: TND PRESS LTD.2017
Pages:53 Pages
Reviewer: chioma Gift Friday
Price: Not stated

In Bolaji Abdullahi sweet sixteen, the protagonist 16 year old Aliya whom her father refers to as ‘My First Lady' bombards her journalist father with questions of which throws him off balance.
“Okay daddy what does HAK and KOTL means?” Aliya asked. And when the father expressed his ignorance of the teenage acronyms, Aliya gleefully supplied them; “HAK means hugs and kisses while KOTL means ‘Kiss on the lips”. And when she added that some students were caught on the school's basketball court at night having sex, Mr Bello almost fainted. But how did you know all these? he asked almost in consternation to which Aliya replied ” come on daddy everybody know these things”.

Bolaji Abdullahi has written extensively over the years in politics, policy and development laid bare in an absorbing page turner, murky truths and hither to unspeakable issues in the ever challenging world of teenagers and young adults.
This book has seven chapters: The letter, drive, work, the Gandhi test, dating, stereotypes and beauty. Sweet Sixteen's central focus was a series of conversations between Mr Bello and his sixteen year old intelligent and precocious daughter on the facts of life. These are topics which the book's editor Molara Wood referred to as “everything a teenage girl ever wanted to know but was afraid to ask”.

Parents and guardians are still divided on how much sensitive information especially on sex education should be divulged to teenagers. Many thinks it is inappropriate to teach children about sex whilst others think it should be a parents choice to inform their own child. In chapter one, Aliya the only child of a journalist Mr Bello who has waited so eagerly to turn sixteen so that her father who always refer her as a child will now see her as a young adult. Normally her father usually send a letter through her principal to her on all her birthdays but on her 16th birthday, it was not just a letter but a specially wrapped box. Inside the box was a portable digital camera, a birthday card and a spiral bound document. She was so curious to know what her father has written this time only to find out that her father wrote a special letter titled “Letter to My Daughter”. In the letter, he congratulated her on her 16th birthday and he wrote on the joy he felt when she was born and how her birth meant he had to take life seriously and live up to the task of being responsible for her. It was a 16 page letter, a page for each year of her life.

In the second chapter, the father in that letter reminded her of the outing they had when she was 12 years. How the casual drive they had that day was planned by him so that he will have a heart to heart discussion with her concerning her growing stage.
Aliya came back from school with so many questions after reading the letter her father sent to her. In chapter three, four and five, she was able to ask her father all the questions she has always wanted to ask and her father was answering all her questions with joy because his daughter is a very smart girl. After answering all her questions, he went ahead and give her some words of advice concerning her academic life.

In chapter six, Aliya and her parents were sitting in the sitting room watching TV, a news channel precisely were they saw another Boko Haram bomb attack being reported. Aliya remembered what her classmate said about Muslims going to hell because they do not believe in Jesus and they kill people. Her father was able to convince her that it is not about being a Muslim or christian that even some christians do kill people.
According to him that kind of generalization is called stereotypes “a set of ideas that people have about someone or something especially an idea that is wrong”. Her father told her a story of a slave master and the slave, how despite all the torture given to the slave by the slave master, the slave was still the one that save the slave master's life at the end.
In chapter seven, Aliya was so disturbed about the story and was imagining if the story is ever possible because to her, she will pay evil to any one that do evil to her. She thought of her teacher that bodyshamed her and was imagining how possible it is to forgive that kind of person. Her father told her that how she feel about herself is more important than how other people make you feel, that despite the body size of anyone, they are very beautiful in their own way so she should forgive the teacher.

In pushing out the themes, the author found a good ally in Aliya Bello, a teenage girl with a curious, fascinating and inquisitive mind and a devoted as well as responsible father. Mr Bello as expected of any good father took responsibility for the education of his daughter including the tricky but very important aspect of sex education. Aliya was therefore fortunate to have a father who did not leave her to struggle alone in her life.