Or—
THIS STORIED PANDEMIC
At the two-year mark of the first Covid-19 global pandemic lockdowns, it occurred
to me that this life altering event has barely registered in books,
movies, TV-series or any of the many ways we tell the stories of our lives.
Where it’s missing most is in children’s books.
The global pandemic brought not only lockdowns with their school closures, but also face masks, vaccinations, and protests against both. It made older relatives spend their last days without family, and some families that lived and worked entirely from home. It ushered shifting directions from authorities, travel restrictions, fluctuating supply chain shortages, and daily experts' updates that often added to confusion.
But most of all,
there was prevailing fear.
This not-brave new
world we found ourselves in should have been a feast for storytellers. (“So, what else
is new?” “PLENTY.”)
Instead, it’s as
if we can’t digest any of it, and thus we keep producing reflections that
bypass the elephant in the room
At the very beginning
of this game-changing reality, I wrote a picture book that told of it; a pet chinchilla
found that it couldn’t go outside. Using animal protagonists is a way of
distancing hard realities while also giving them full emotional agency.
My then-agent felt
it would all be over soon, and so it was never shopped to editors. I understood
agent’s point. But I also thought that regardless of whether it be a brief
episode— barely a snippet in time, or one that lasts a while, it has a place in
stories.
Especially for the youngest readers, who barely remember how it was before.
