10 April 2020 Brussels, Belgium) – Axel Scheffler, illustrator of the beloved Gruffalo stories, has created an ebook to help children understand the coronavirus pandemic. The book, written in collaboration with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), explains what Covid-19 is, how it affects people and the measures introduced to control the spread of the virus.
Prof Graham Medley, professor of infectious disease modelling at the LSHTM, who advised on the book, said:
Helping children understand what is going on is an important step in helping them cope and making them part of the story – this is something that we are all going through, not something being done to them.
The question-and-answer book is aimed at pre-school and primary school children, while another free book by children’s author and illustrator Lydia Monks features a character called Dr Dog, who explains the outbreak for two-to-five-year-olds.
LSHTM has also helped develop an educational campaign for parents and children, fronted by a cartoon hand called Hans.
Earlier this month Scheffler and Gruffalo author Julia Donaldson produced a series of coronavirus-themed cartoons, showing how some of their best-known characters, including the storybook monster, Zog and Stick Man, are coping with social distancing, home schooling and isolation.