New York Times bestselling illustrator and author Zachariah OHora wasn’t certain if he should say in advance that his main character in the new PBS Kids series “Carl the Collector” is autistic. As the program evolved and OHora collected input from autism experts, he realized it was an important part of the program to be emphasized. “The main thing about the whole show is really to show kids how they are, however that is,” OHora says. “The full spectrum of humanity, including neurodivergent kids and neurotypical kids. “Just basically reflecting back to kids who are watching the kind of kids that they are or that they're going to meet when they start going to school and in their everyday life.” When the series debuts Nov. 14 on Valley PBS, viewers will be introduced to Carl, a warm-hearted autistic raccoon who enjoys collecting things and loves his friends and family in Fuzzytown. In each episode, Carl and his friends work and play together, and in the process, find out what makes each of them who they are. Carl pays extraordinarily close attention to detail and comes up with unique ideas that others might not consider. These traits have helped him amass his extensive collections—from autographs and bottle caps to fake mustaches, pet rocks, sweaters, and virtually everything in between—which can come in handy for solving problems around the neighborhood. To make sure that each episode is properly dealing with the subject of autism, OHora turned to a large group of experts. There are also staff members who represent a broad range of those on the spectrum. Lisa Whittick, who directs the series, wants to make sure all the voices on the cast and crew are heard. The entire community of Fuzzytown is a combination of neurotypical and neurodiverse characters and the interaction to see how they all deal with troubles and different situations in their own authentic way is the key to the production. Her concern for the show comes from a very personal place as Whittick’s son is autistic. What she observed with her son over the years are a lot of physical traits she wanted to bring to the characters of Carl and Lotta. She says, “Carl has a few different stims that he does when he's overstimulated or if he's just very excited and happy.  He may pace if he's upset or if he's really excited, he'll do a little arm flap or when he's nervous he'll do a little finger wiggle. “Lotta has a really sweet stim where she will twirl her tail.  A lot of autistic people love texture and soft things, and so instead of giving her a plushie or something to hold, she likes to hold her tail and twirl the top of it like if somebody would twirl their hair.  So, it's just like little sweet moments like that that I think are really going to endear the characters to the audience.” “Carl the Collector” is the first television project for OHora as he has spent the majority of his life as a picture book writer and illustrator. His published works include Wolfie the Bunny, Stop Snoring Bernard! “No Fits Nelson!” The initial idea for creating “Carl the Collector” came through the Pennsylvania resident taking his two sons to school. “We're lucky enough to have an inclusion school.  So, there were kids with various needs in every single classroom with aides,” OHora says. “The idea behind that is that everybody, neurodiverse or whatever their needs are, can have the same access to education, and also the social access to hanging out with other kids. “It was a light bulb moment for me to see how great that was and how it benefited like the neurotypical kids and the neurodiverse kids, and that was where it started.” Making the transition from illustrating books to creating a television series was easy for OHora as he leaned heavily on Whittick. The easiest part was deciding that Carl would be a raccoon. OHora loves all kinds of animals but sees raccoons as being very cute and fuzzy. He points out that they live in Fuzzytown so the selection was obvious. The wardrobe for the characters varies as some have shirts and some have pants.  Sometimes they have shoes but never all three. As for Carl’s look, the selection of him always wearing argyle sweaters was an equally easy decision to make. “I made Carl have argyle sweater vests just because I think raccoons look great in argyle sweater vests,” OHora says. “And one of our autism advisers, Dr. Stephen Shore, who is also on the spectrum, collects argyle vests. “So, some of it was inadvertent but it turned out to be exactly the thing.”