CORONA DAZE

As a girl’s routine changes because of Covid-19, she adjusts to some things while others remain frightening in this picture book.

“One day Eva had to stay at home…and stay...and stay…” Eva’s small, pale-skinned face peers sadly toward the street; a calendar’s pages, covered with red X’s, fall to the floor in a two-page spread. The rules of daily life suddenly have shifted: Eva can’t go to school or the playground. She wears a mask and experiences trouble sleeping. Her parents explain that Covid-19 makes some people sicker than others and can kill. “Eva does her best at being patient” and paints, learns, and plays indoors. Angel’s evocative black-and-white photographs of an eerie neighborhood and empty grocery store shelves effectively document the pandemic’s early days. Simple digital cartoon additions to the photos populate yards with deer and illustrate an ambulance racing past a sign celebrating medical workers. During a period when charts communicate so much about the outbreak to adults, some visual allusions may require more clarification for young readers. For example, an orange President Donald Trump points fingers in two directions as a chart implicitly showing case rates appears behind him. Eva’s family doesn’t experience the extreme trauma others deal with, such as eviction. But the clear articulation of Eva’s anxieties and coping mechanisms may still be useful and relatable for many families struggling to address how the crisis has affected them.

Offers helpful tools for starting difficult conversations with kids during a rapidly changing pandemic.