Although most children have not been as physically ill with COVID-19 as adults have, experts say evidence of the virus’s psychological damage to children is alarming.
Harvard resident Katharine Covino and Elizabeth Englander, who lives and works in Bridgewater, have written a book with the intention of using humor to help kids deal with the stress and trauma they may be experiencing. Titled “The Insanely Awesome Pandemic Playbook: A Covid-19 Survival Guide for Kids,” the book gives elementary school-age children ways to reflect on the anxiety they might be feeling and suggests steps to take to address different issues, especially those relating to technology. The book is illustrated by Bromfield seventh-grader Caroline Charland. “More than anything else, we want to support kids (and their families) in understanding, processing, and addressing the challenges they are facing [and to do so] in an accessible, kid-friendly way,” wrote Covino in an email.
Author Katy Covino and illustrator Caroline Charland. (Photo by Jen Manell)
The two friends are not new to writing in collaboration with each other. They met in 2016 at a symposium that Covino, who teaches children’s literature in the English studies department at Fitchburg State University, had organized. Englander, a professor of psychology and a writer who has done extensive research on ways children and young adults use and are affected by technology, was the keynote speaker. In a conversation between the two, Englander asked Covino if she wrote children’s books as well as taught them. Covino’s response—that she hadn’t yet but had always wanted to—was all it took for the two women to embark on a collaboration that has produced three books.
Their first book, which will be published next year, is a guide for 8- to 13-year-olds on the use and abuse of cell phones. Covino said she herself has struggled with setting rules about technology for her three children, and Englander identified with her, having gone through a similar experience with her three sons, adding in an email, “Dealing with technology and social media and gaming is extremely challenging.” The two women thought other parents would welcome guidance on how to help their kids make choices and decisions about digital technology. Their second book, currently under review, is a humorous take on various problems younger kids can have in using different kinds of technology.
In their work sessions over the past several months, Covino and Englander spent time talking about the many changes in their lives because of the pandemic, and Covino described how much time her kids, grades 8, 6, and 3, were spending on screens for distance learning. Over the summer, Englander wrote an e-book and paper book called “When the Kids Come Back,” which gives a return-to-school guide and covers a lot of what the two friends had been talking about. That work was intended for an adult audience, but it sparked the idea that kids needed something like that, a book addressing their needs but in an accessible, humorous way—and a new collaboration was born.
In “Insanely Awesome Pandemic Playbook,” the authors talk about the pandemic in relation to technology use and overuse, how to take breaks from screens, strategies for focusing on schoolwork, ways to reflect on feelings of anxiety, and how to recognize that others are also feeling isolated and alone. They offer specific steps to help kids feel better.
Collaborative writing can be challenging, but Covino said her established partnership with Englander and their ability to write specifically for children helped them focus on the message and tone of the new book. “We trust each other,” Covino wrote; “We have true co-authorship of the text … and let each other know when something isn’t working.”
It was clear to the authors early on that because the book is for kids, they wanted a kid to illustrate it. As a friend of Jennifer Charland, Covino knew her daughter Caroline was an accomplished artist, and she had often admired her work posted on social media. So it seemed natural for Covino and Englander to reach out to Caroline, who, Covino said, is “such a tremendously talented young artist” and “was a wonderful and productive collaborator.”
Caroline said in an email that it’s hard for kids her age to feel as though they are helping in today’s situation, and working on this book was “my way of helping other people (kids especially) deal with the challenges of living through a pandemic.” As the authors wrote each chapter, they would send it to Caroline’s mom and she and Caroline would print it out, read it together, and brainstorm ideas. The writers told Caroline they wanted “some silliness” to be conveyed with the illustrations to offset the seriousness of the subject. Other than that, Caroline said, “They gave me a lot of freedom.”
An example of that “silliness” to balance the seriousness is in the way Caroline chose to illustrate the concept of FOMO as Four Ordained Man-sized Ostriches, before the text describes the real details of what FOMO is—the fear of missing out—and why it is important to be mindful of the stress it can cause.
The book has illustrations of lots of different kids to represent a diverse population, and they are geared to readers ages 9 to 11, Caroline said, “so they are kind of bubbly and enthusiastic looking.” Caroline’s process was to start with a rough sketch to get her idea worked out and then move from the draft to her iPad and use that with her Apple pencil to refine the art. “Digital art prints more cleanly than traditional paper-and-pencil work,” she explained, and it’s a lot easier to edit.
Caroline said even though illustrating a book is considered “work,” this project never felt like that because she was learning so much and having such fun “creating the visual story that matched the authors’ written words.” She said it has been “thrilling” to take her art to a professional level and to see it in the pages of an actual book about to be published.
While Covino and Englander went through a publisher with their first two books, they chose to self-publish this one so the book could be out sooner to be of practical help.
They expect the book to be available as an e-book and a paper book on Amazon sometime next week. More information is at http://www.insanelyawesomebooks.com.
