Simran Jeet Singh: Hi, I'm Simran Jeet Singh and I'm the author of Fauja Singh Keeps Going: The True Story of the Oldest Person to Ever Run a Marathon. I grew up in South Texas and there was no one around who looked like me or the people in my family. We have turbans; we have long hair. And so since childhood I've been looking for a book that will show kids around the world what my family is about and what our community is about. And so I'd always be disappointed. And I remember once a librarian said to me, when I asked her about this, she said, "This community of people they're just not relatable," and that really hurt. It felt to me like she was saying that nobody cared about me, nobody cared about my family. And I knew that wasn't true because all of these people around me did care and they did want to know.

So I promised myself then, as a kid, that when I grew up that I would write a story about the people in my community, if no one had done it yet. And so we can fast forward 30 years, my older daughter is born and I go back to the same bookshelves at the libraries and bookstores, and nothing has changed. There still aren't any books that represent characters that look like the people I love and the people that I know. And so that's when I resolved to write a book. I think the other thing that happened right around then was one of my favorite runners came to New York City for a race and I went to go meet him. I took my six-week-old daughter with me and he held her in his arms the whole time we talked. He was 104 at the time.

So it was this remarkable moment. And as he was talking about his life, and I was thinking about those values that he represented in terms of resilience and perseverance and all these things that I wanted to instill in my daughter, I was thinking, "Well, this is the book I have to write." And the last thing that happened in that experience was I had always identified with him as a fellow turban-wearing Sikh man. I saw my story and his, but I also realized through our conversation that there were so many things about his life that made me challenge my own assumptions. Here's somebody who had dealt with disability since childhood and I had never really thought so much about what it must have been like for someone to deal with disability.

He never learned to read or write and in my head, I had always had this bias that truly intelligent people are people who know how to read or write. And here is a man that I admired who couldn't. And that really made me transform what I thought our heroes could look like. And I think that's what this book, I hope, does for children. It helps them re-imagine that their heroes can be immigrants like Fauja Singh.

I am reading an excerpt from Fauja Singh Keeps Going:

As time passed, Fauja's children grew up and moved to places far away. Fauja, who was usually lively and energetic, grew sad and lonely, especially after his wife died.

He missed his family and wanted to be with them. But to leave his village at the age of 81 to go live on the other side of the world! Could Fauja do it?

His friends were worried. "You are too old, Fauja" they said, "It's too hard for you to move away."

But Fauja didn't listen and Fauja didn't stop. He knew it was time for him to take a step in a new direction. One day, Fauja got on an airplane for the first time and went to live with his family in England. It was cold in England, and almost everyone only spoke English. Fauja was used to having many friends, but here he felt like a stranger. His family was busy with school and work. Fauja found himself with nowhere to go and nothing to do.

Fauja passed his days in the living room, staring at the television. He had never been so miserable. As he was flipping channels one day, he saw something new. A whole lot of people were running around town. Was it a fire? An accident? No, Fauja realized. They were running just to run! And they all had big smiles on their faces. Fauja knew at once that he had to try this. He put on his shoes, then walked out the door. He took one step. And another... Then another, and another, and another! Fauja Singh was running. The wind flowed through his beard and, for the first time in a long while, a smile appeared on his face.