Adam Prudhomme
Editor
Newburgh illustrator Peggy Collins’ work in the children’s book A Sky-Blue Bench has been recognized as an Honour Winner for the 2022 American Library Association Schneider Family Book Award in the Young Children category.
The award is presented to books that ‘embody an artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences’. Winners are selected based on their accurate portrayal of the emotional or physical disability as part of a full life.
Written by Bahram Rahman, A Sky-Blue Bench covers the story of Aria, a young Afghan girl whose prosthesis leg makes sitting on the floor of her classroom too painful to learn. Her solution is to build a sky blue coloured bench to make her school experience more comfortable. The story is based on a real life experience of Rahman, who grew up in Afghanistan where a classmate lost her leg to a landmine. Through her illustrations, Collins helps the story come to life while helping to make a difficult topic much more relatable for a young audience.
An experienced author/illustrator with over 35 titles published, Collins says this book required her to do more research than she’d ever done before in an effort to get all the details correct.
“Just finding images of schools that weren’t in complete disrepair, the way the media has Afghanistan constantly in the news is not a very positive light because there’s a lot of really horrible things going on,” said Collins. “Finding any kind of school stuff or even inside homes, because it features a girl, her mother and brother, it’s hard to see pictures inside houses because it’s very private, especially where women live, they’re really not shared widely. The author helped me out a lot.”
Collins relied on Rahman’s first-hand knowledge of Afghanistan as well as the documentary What Tomorrow Brings to get a sense of life for female students in the country.
“Our take on the story was we really wanted it to be really reflective of the character and her drive to make her own life more comfortable and less of a focus on the ‘why’ (she lost her leg or how) it happened,” said Collins.
She says a story of a young amputee was an important one to showcase as it’s not often seen, particularly in children’s books.
“I think the more we see things, the more it’s less of a mystery,” said Collins. “And kids are so smart and they know when they’re being left out and they know when they’re actually seen.”
Collins and Rahman are scheduled to make a trip to Washington, D.C. this summer to officially accept the award.
Meanwhile one of Collins’ other works, Harley the Hero, is up for a Blue Spruce Award. Collins said that award is a particularly special one as the nominees are voted on by students.
It’s shaping up to be a busy spring for Collins, as she’ll soon be releasing Whistling for Angela. Also published through Pajama Press, this children’s book will explore adoption as a teen mom meets the parents that will be adopting her child.
Also due out soon is Hungry for the Arts, a third book in a series of books that explores STEAM subjects for young students. This book is published through Fitzhenry and Whiteside.