{"id":15737,"date":"2025-07-17T06:42:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T06:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/15737\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T06:42:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T06:42:10","slug":"jashar-awan-with-focus-and-childlike-energy-stars-so-far-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/15737\/","title":{"rendered":"Jashar Awan: With Focus and Childlike Energy | Stars So Far 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

With every book, Jashar Awan comes a little closer to establishing himself as the chronicler extraordinaire of what most people see as childhood’s mundane moments, and it’s magic.<\/p>\n

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For anyone wondering where Jashar Awan\u2019s characters\u2014for example the narrator of\u00a0I\u2019m Going to Build a Snowman\u00a0(S. & S.) and the eponymous leads of\u00a0Towed by Toad\u00a0(Tundra) and\u00a0Every Monday Mabel\u00a0(S. & S.)\u2014get all that industry and energy, look no further than their creator himself. By fall 2026 and Toad\u2019s second book, Awan will have notches for over half a dozen published books on his belt, and the first one,\u00a0What a Lucky Day!\u00a0(Norton), only came out in 2020. He worked with Simon Boughton on that one, followed by\u00a0Only Ants for Andy\u00a0(Norton); next came\u00a0Strum & Drum: A Merry Little Quest,\u00a0I\u2019m Going to Build a Snowman,\u00a0and\u00a0Every Monday Mabel\u00a0at S. & S., where he works with Celia Lee and Lucy Ruth Cummins (who was in the class ahead of him at Pratt).<\/p>\n

Awan is not even breathing hard as he talks about future releases\u00a0Where I Grew\u00a0(Norton), this time illustrated by Rahele Jomepour Bell, and the follow-up, in sensibility, to\u00a0I\u2019m Going to Build a Snowman, called\u00a0Loops\u00a0(S. & S.)\u2014it\u2019s about practice, perseverance, and learning to tie shoes.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Awan\u2019s calm is due to his background, which included 13 years of doing editorial illustrations for\u00a0The New Yorker.\u00a0The turnarounds are tight for \u201cGoings On About Town\u201d and the movie reviews. But that still doesn\u2019t explain how he puts pen to paper and in a few strokes captures the details that make up a child\u2019s world. They are busy! They have places to go, things to see! It may be snow, it may be a friendly neighborhood garbage truck, but the focus his characters demonstrate delights readers of all ages.<\/p>\n

His son was six when Awan\u2019s first picture book came out. \u201cAfter my son was born, I rediscovered my love of picture books. It was so much fun to start building a little library for him.\u00a0Gaston\u00a0by Kelly DiPucchio and Christian Robinson was a real reminder of how fun kids books could be\u2014fun to look at and fun to read aloud. I will always remember hearing my son\u2019s little voice reciting the names of the puppies as they are introduced in the book. If that doesn\u2019t make someone want to start making picture books, I don\u2019t know what will!\u201d<\/p>\n

His father, who loved William Steig, read to him every night; Awan created visuals for books like\u00a0The Chronicles of Narnia\u00a0so his younger brother might follow along more easily. \u201cI drew all the time, that was my thing,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Their childhood also included much-loved weekend visits to the library. \u201cI left with a stack of books\u2014going to the library was such a big deal.\u201d As it happened, Awan\u2019s first job was working as a page at the library. \u201cI got to check out all the areas of the library I wouldn\u2019t normally get to see, and got to dig around,\u201d he says, noting that he still spends time at the library near his home in Hudson, OH, the Hudson Library and Historical Society. \u201cI\u2019m there all the time. It\u2019s a beautiful building. The children\u2019s department is huge.\u201d<\/p>\n

His appreciation for the start he got from books and libraries runs deep and is growing. \u201cLibraries are just so important, they\u2019re such a source of knowledge and community resources,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s why they are under attack. Knowledge is power\u2014it\u2019s a clich\u00e9 but it\u2019s true. Defunding libraries is just another attempt at taking power away from people.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the political part. But for Awan, libraries are also deeply personal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was a new parent in Brooklyn, NY, the library was a great child-friendly place to take a kid,\u201d he says. \u201cThe story time with Ms. Elena provided a sense of community for all the new parents in the neighborhood. It definitely helped keep me sane in those early days.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keeping sane\u2014that might be another theme. So is forging ahead. Mabel is impervious to stares or comments. She has a mission. And readers learn that Mabel\u2019s mission, watching the sanitation truck do its job, is shared by many others. It\u2019s an unspoken but joyful hurrah in the direction of community, commonalities, and focus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With every book, Jashar Awan comes a little closer to establishing himself as the chronicler extraordinaire of what…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15738,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[14922,223,14921,88,14925,1468,14923,14924],"class_list":["post-15737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-bestbooks","tag-books","tag-elementary","tag-entertainment","tag-every-monday-mabel","tag-i","tag-jashar-awan","tag-towed-by-toad"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}