“The biggest message in this book is to help our young kids open their minds and hearts to reimagine what our heroes can look like.” ❤️
Sikhs Cultivate Body and Soul Through Running
I got in touch with Fauja’s running coach, and while I didn’t need permission to tell someone’s story, I really wanted Fauja to be part of the process. Fauja doesn’t read or write English, so his coach would take the story to him and translate it to Punjabi. I asked his coach to get a reaction and what Fauja felt good about or what was missing.
My illustrator and I also flew to London to spend time with Fauja once the first draft of the book was completed. It was to really get a sense of who Fauja was so we could capture his spirit. It didn’t change the way we told the story, but it gave the story layers and added his personality. The illustrator was able to better capture how he looked and the way his body moved.
[With a book like this], all of a sudden we can counter negative messages about people who look like me with something positive. To me, that’s the potential for books like this. Story-telling is a way to humanize people who have been dehumanized for way too long.My daughter, who’s 4, loves any story you tell her so she’s not a good test audience. But when we looked at the illustrations, there is one of a younger Fauja braiding his daughter’s hair. His daughter was around my daughter’s age.
Everywhere I went, I was told that nobody would be interested in this story. There’s no market. There’s no precedent. But I knew in my heart that it was just a good story.
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