“You will grow up one day too. Nothing in this life remains the same.” These words of wisdom and learning are given to little Collin who is discovering amazing things happening in his own garden.
Sajida Fazal’s book, ‘Collin and the Caterpillar’, is a story of many things. It is a story of empath, love, hope, and life as it engagingly takes the young reader through the stages of metamorphosis.
Speaking about her inspiration for the tale, Sajida says, “The story was inspired by one of my favourite children’s picture book authors, Eric Carle’s ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’. I have always wanted to meet him in person and give a copy of this book, but even though the story and illustrations were completed around 2019-20, I only managed to get it published after I contacted The Jam Fruit Tree, and unfortunately, Eric Carle passed away in 2021.”
Sajida is currently making arrangements to reach the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Massachusetts in the USA to send them a copy.
The book details the interaction between six-year-old Collin and his grandfather and Sajida drew inspiration from her own grandfather, who is a retired army officer who took up gardening after his retirement.
Sajida has been ghost-writing children’s stories since 2012 on freelance platforms such as UpWork (Called Elance back then) and Fiverr. She has ghost-written over fifty children’s stories for clients primarily from the US, the UK, and Canada. After doing this for years, she finally decided to produce something with her own name on it, especially seeing stories written by her sold on Amazon to customers across the globe.
Sajida says, ‘Before I published Collin and the Caterpillar’, I experimented with the KDP platform with some Islamic children’s activity books, and, to my surprise, with no efforts in marketing, my first activity book had been purchased by over 300 customers on Amazon marketplaces in the US, the UK, Canada and Japan. I only found out, when I received a USD payment credited to my account. Thereafter, I published two other Islamic activity books with written content on Amazon and have made sales through Amazon with positive reviews as well.”
Sajida has just published ‘Collin and the Caterpillar’ on Amazon (paperback and Kindle versions) and looks forward to working on some promotional activities for the same soon.
Her book certainly carries a lot of meaning for her and the support of her family has been paramount. “The illustrations were done by my sister, Safrah Fazal, who has done an amazing job with it, especially as this is her very first illustration job as well,” says Sarah.
Sarah holds a BSc in Multimedia Technology and an MSc in Strategic Marketing and also engages in children’s content creation as a passion, including composing children’s songs for a YouTube channel in the UK.
And can we look forward to more from Sajida. The answer is a resounding ‘yes!’ “I am working on a bedtime story – in rhyme – that will hopefully be available soon,” she says.
We are certainly looking forward to her next book. ‘Colin and the Caterpillar’ is perfect for reading to young kids and is informative and gripping. The illustrations do the book great justice and would be a great addition to a reader’s collection. This is a book your child can revisit time and again, growing with the story, so to speak.
To quote the author, Eric Carle: “You, like the little caterpillar, will one day grow up, unfold your wings and fly off into the future.”