Parastoo

Parastoo enjoys the colors of the seasons with her grandparents, but she misses her mother, who is working as a nurse for soldiers at the border.

Rashin Kheiriyeh (rashinart.com) is an award-winning illustrator, author, animator, and painter who has published over ninety children’s books in more than a dozen countries. In 2023, she was nominated for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, and she has received fifty national and international awards, including the Sendak Fellowship Award, the Bologna Book Fair New Horizon Award, the Golden Apple Award (Slovakia), and the FAJR Film Festival Crystal Roc Award (Iran). She has a Doctorate in illustration and an MFA in graphic design. She’s the artist for Sugarland (Shekarestan), the most popular animated TV series in Iran, and a lecturer in the University of Maryland art department. She was born in Iran, and now lives in Washington DC.