blogcutter

It was bound to happen before long. Parents, teachers and other significant adults in kids' lives are desperate for ways to explain Covid-19 to the kids in simple terms, all while still struggling to understand it themselves. With limits on in-person communication, they rely more and more on books, TV shows and other kidmedia.

Loukia Zigoumis, an Ottawa mother, aunt and lifestyle blogger in collaboration with her own mother, well-known children's author Katerina Mertikas, has produced a 28-page picture book for younger kids. Proceeds from the sale of the book will support CHEO (which held its annual telethon yesterday) and the Kids' Help Phone. Details may be found here:

https://www.ottawamatters.com/helpers/childrens-book-explaining-covid-19-life-also-raising-money-for-cheo-kids-help-phone-2401108?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Email

Meanwhile in B.C., Orca Books recently published a book for middle-grade readers, Don't Stand So Close to Me:

https://www.orcabook.com/Dont-Stand-So-Close-to-Me-P4843.aspx

As a grandmother and retired librarian, I naturally am following these developments with great interest. I also have long been fascinated by the possibilities of bibliotherapy, journalling and poetry therapy, music therapy and art therapy. Kids themselves have also shown considerable creativity and ingenuity in projects they have gotten off the ground to help others impacted by the pandemic.

Of course, documents from the pandemic can be significant as much for what they DON'T say as for what they do say. I've been doing a very informal analysis of some of the literature, much of which had to be hastily put together to meet immediate needs. Some of it really looks quite good, but I'm wondering how enduring it will be. And how will today's kids approach educating and socializing THEIR kids when pandemics strike in future generations?

In the non-pandemic reading I've been doing over the past few months, I've been struck by how many books, written decades or even centuries ago, casually refer to someone standing about two yards away, or about six feet away, when the literary situation has nothing whatsoever to do with pandemics or epidemics or self-isolation. Perhaps in some ways, our ancestors had a better grasp of healthy living than we do! I think we can be a little too quick to dismiss intuitive or intrinsic social knowledge and assume that everything is either (on the one hand) based on objective logic and scientific evidence (and therefore necessarily or probably true) OR (on the other hand) "fake news", celebrity culture or spam (and therefore false).

We need, I think, to have more respect for the arts, for anecdotal evidence, emotion, gut instinct and storytelling, to name but a few sources of wisdom.