Sky-Blue Bench

This beautiful picture book tells the story of Afghan schoolgirl Aria, on her first day back to school after losing her leg in a landmine explosion. Written by Bahram Rahman, and set in Afghanistan, the story follows Aria as she ventures back to her classroom only to find that her new prosthetic leg makes it near impossible for her to sit on the floor all day with her classmates. She knows that before the war, classrooms like hers used to have benches, and so she begins to brainstorm how she might use her resources to build herself a bench.

Sky-Blue Bench has won several awards, including The Middle East Book Award 2022 Honorable Mention in the Picture Book Category (which is where I found it, via links through a Wakelet provided by a course professor). The illustrations, done by Canadian Peggy Collins, were carefully crafted in close consultation with the author and research about girls' schools in Afghanistan. This book could be used in Pre-K and early elementary classrooms, even as it gently addresses concepts like war and landmines. An age-appropriate introduction to landmines is included after the conclusion of the story, but a young reader could simply see the book and understand that Aria had an accident and now has a prosthetic leg which makes some of her mobility a little more complicated than her classmates. The story is a great resource for show resilience and use of prosthetics, and it could be a great resource for challenging young students to think of some way their classroom could be more accessible to all students. Another project that could stem from the book would be to task students with brainstorming a project that would improve the school or their community in some way (like Aria's bench), that they could use their own resources to tackle.