Ashanti Accused Of Plagiarism By A Philadelphia Author After Announcing The Release Of Her New Children’s Book – “For some celebrity who probably didn’t even write it to just steal my idea. I am shaking.”

Grammy award-winning artist Ashanti recently shared with her audience that she is releasing a new Children’s book in July called “My NAME IS A STORY” which is currently on pre-order.

Her caption:
I’m so excited to finally share the news that my debut picture book MY NAME IS A STORY comes out on July 19th! ?❤️Inspired by my own experiences, I wrote this book to remind children that every name is special and deserves to be honored and celebrated. Every name tells a story.

What’s in a name? Everything! Saying each other’s names correctly is one way to value and see people fully. My hope is that MY NAME IS A STORY will be an inspiration to anyone who has been made fun of because their name was different, or had their name mispronounced or not pronounced at all.

Thank you Monica Mikai @monicamikai for bringing my story to life with your Beautiful illustrations.

MY NAME IS A STORY, published by @HarperKids, is available for pre-order now. Check out the link in my bio for more information.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Ashanti (@ashanti)

Shortly after her announcement Philly-based children’s writer, Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow took to Twitter accusing Ashanti of ripping off one of her books “Your Name Is A Song”

She said:
My heart hurts…is Ashanti ripping off my book? Ashanti’s is on the left. Here’s mine on the right, published with @InnovationPress”

She then shared a side by side of the books:

Jamilah then shared a synopsis of both books where she pointed out similarities.

Ashanti’s book synopsis:

Jamilah’s book synopsis:

With that said Jamilah is pretty disappointed about the entire thing, sharing that she worked over a year on the book and saying it took two years to find an agent. 

She also said that it gets worse but she cannot share what more she has learned.

Read below.

Twitter reaction:

Often, it takes yrs to write a story, find an agent and publisher, & then get it published.

I support author @jtbigelow‘s picture book #YourNameisaSong.

I hope @Ashanti and @HarperChildrens fixes this.

An author’s nightmare.

For my full post: https://t.co/tEUWZnLNLl pic.twitter.com/TosvPl7c5T

— Nadia L. Hohn, author & OCT educator (@nadialhohn) April 2, 2022

and

and

It gets worse: pic.twitter.com/DyfVMffuyO

— Lacey Vorrasi-Banis (@LaceyBanis) April 1, 2022

and

Ashanti’s
Publisher
Comped
The
Book
She
Copied

You can’t make this stuff up.

Poor Jamilah ? https://t.co/BZcbTjYPvO

— ?Vianna Arenas(she/they) فيانا ? (@ViannaWrites) April 1, 2022

and

someone plagiarized your work. someone stole it, cheapened it, and put a label on it to sell. the plagiarized book should be removed and your story should be put in its place! I suspect that Ashanti did not do this herself, but it’s time for her to make amends to you for this.

— naursicaä (@snuggletweets) April 1, 2022

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