A Sky-Blue Bench

Written by Bahram Rahman

Illustrated by Peggy Collins

Pajama Press

978-1-77278-222-6

32 pp.

Ages 5-8

 November 2021

 

Bahram Rahman, author of The Library Bus (Pajama Press, 2020), returns the reader to Afghanistan and offers another hopeful tale of resilience and courage, creativity and endeavour.

From A Sky-Blue Bench by Bahram Rahman, illus. by Peggy Collins

Aria is an Afghan girl with lovely new red shoes and a helper-leg that she got after an accident. (Bahram Rahman's appended notes talk of land mines and unexploded ordinance.) While she is eager to be returning to school after her lengthy hospitalization, Aria is apprehensive, especially as all the wooden school furniture has been destroyed for firewood and the children now sit with bent knees on a floor tarp, something she will be unable to do.

From A Sky-Blue Bench by Bahram Rahman, illus. by Peggy Collins

Aria contemplates not returning to school but rejects that idea and instead comes up with the "brave idea" to build herself a bench. Most of the girls laugh at her plan but Aria is determined and she and her lone friend scavenge the city for discarded wooden boards, broken pieces of furniture, and random nails and screws. Then, Aria and her mother visit a carpenter in the old city who, for the gift of a loaf of bread, loans her an assortment of tools and a can of sky-blue paint.

"Sky-blue is the color of courage, peace and," he tapped at his temple, "wisdom."

From A Sky-Blue Bench by Bahram Rahman, illus. by Peggy Collins

And so a bench is created, and with it an opportunity for Aria and the other girls to take control of their own schooling needs.

Though Bahram Rahman makes it clear from his notes about circumstances he and others experienced in his homeland of Afghanistan, he does not dwell on the horrors of land mines or the challenges of living with a civil war. Instead Bahram Rahman speaks to a girl's determination to get an education, be proactive and resourceful, and to challenge herself to meet her own needs. It's a brave commentary on focusing on what you can change, not on what you can't, and Aria demonstrates that the possibilities can be inspiring. 

While there is a brightness and a child-like quality to her art, Peggy Collins (Harley the Hero, 2021) stays firmly in realism, but without immersing her art in the adversity of the situation. Aria's prosthetic leg is barely visible under her black dress and the challenges of the civil war are obscured by the vibrancy of the community in its activity and colour. Peggy Collins takes us into the Afghanistan of Aria's life, not of news reports: her school, her helper-leg, her mother and little brother, and her community. Her sky-blue bench is as assured as she is.

A Sky-Blue Bench may be a story from Afghanistan but its lessons about self-reliance and resourcefulness will speak to all children, especially those facing their own challenges, and encourage them to find solutions. With a desire, some hard work and a little wisdom, Aria was able to build something worthwhile, with wood and with vision.

Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses

Written by Caroline Stellings

Peanut Butter Press

978-1-927735-14-5

32 pp.

Ages 5-8

2017

It may be about trucks and cars and mechanics, but Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses is truly a love story. And Caroline Stellings slips in that bit of romance so subtly that, except for the inevitable "Aw" at the end, young readers will still think it's a story about mechanics fixing up vehicles.

From Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses 

by Caroline Stellings

Matt works at Ben’s garage and his only dream is to own an eighteen wheeler.  But, from his meagre room at the back of the garage, it’s evident that Matt does not have the money for such a purchase. But Ben has an idea of fixing up an old car.  He finds a wreck missing most of its parts but it is free. So the two work all spring until it is drivable.  But when his cat friend Harry is desperate for transportation, Matt gives away the newly refurbished yellow car.

Next Ben finds an old clunker of a station wagon that the two repair, only to have Matt give it to Mrs. Potter, the rabbit, who is struggling to take her ten children to school in the pouring rain.

From Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses 

by Caroline Stellings

Their next project is an old pick up truck that takes them all autumn to fix. When a customer at the hardware store  overhears Matt talking about his truck, identical to one in  a calendar posted at the store, you know it’s going to change hands again.  Showing Matt an old photo of his wife on their wedding day beside such a truck, Tom had been searching everywhere for one just like it.  So on Christmas Eve, with a dozen roses, Tom picks up the Neptune Green truck to surprise his wife.  But, in a twist of fate, the surprise don’t end there and Matt’s dream comes true after all.

In a true tale of kindness and kismet, Caroline Stellings portrays a generosity rarely experienced in our world today, and demonstrates that “what goes around, comes around” in a charming plot of dogs, a cat, rabbits and cars and trucks.  It’s a story about an ordinary Joe (or rather Matt) who just keeps plugging along at life, dreaming of an eighteen wheeler and working just to survive.  But his heart is bigger than his dream and, though no one takes advantage of him, Matt gives away far more he gets. Or so it seems.  In that turn of destiny or fate or karma, Matt gets what he wants without having to compromise himself or his work ethic, still able to help many along the way.  With an understated story of kindness repaid, Caroline Stellings’s watercolour and pen and ink illustrations convey that softness and subtlety.  (By the way, if you’re a dog lover, Matt and Ben are based on the author’s own Schipperkes, Matt and Ben, to whom she dedicates the book, along with her mother “who treasured them.”) 

In Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses, Caroline Stellings gives an alternative explanation for the country song of the same name.  I think I prefer this one, as it carries a profound sentiment about good works and karma and important lessons worthy of sharing with young readers.

From Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses 

by Caroline Stellings