Talofa lava,

O lo’u igoa o Falefitu Tony Laulu, au te sau mai le nu’u o Fa'ala i Palauli i Savai’i ma Moata’a i Upolu.

My name is Falefitu Tony Laulu and I hail from the villages of Fa'ala i Palauli in Savai'i and Moata'a in Upolu.

I never thought I’d ever end up writing and publishing books but the great thing with life and purpose is whatever is meant for you will find you. Such is the case with the creation of the Chief Book Series.

I am grateful for the opportunity (from MPP) to write our first book, Lemalie and Sakalia’s School Holiday. A book dedicated to my two sons who feature as characters in this book but also a story about young people having positive and fun device free experiences.

From that isolated project I realized two things. One, we needed more books that represented our Pasefika Children in how they actually look and stories they can actually relate to and secondly, their wasn’t enough or any that I know of, male, Samoan, children's book authors.

From these two realizations and the help of God I dove into writing and publishing an additional four Samoan and English bilingual children's books.

All our books tell stories that are authentic to us, especially living outside of Samoa. They are stories our Samoan children and parents will find very familiar. As a father myself I see the immense obligation I have to contribute to our language and journey as a “Samoan” for our young people.

These books we have carefully produced hopefully encourage our young people to seek out what it means to be “Samoan” whilst reading stories that are familiar to them.

I’ve been blessed to have a strong team next to me, especially my Uso Tomasi Greentree who without him I couldn’t have produced the illustrations needed to present our stories to the reader.

We desire to continue putting out stories that feel homely, familiar and relevant so that it makes it easier for our young Pasefika readers feel more connected.