PLAYGROUND tears and fears has prompted a mother of four to publish a children’s eBook about the coronavirus, with illustrations by a Launceston artist.

Two mums have taken action against the coronavirus after hearing about an upsetting playground incident at the school gates recently. A friend’s six-year-old son came home from school in tears after being told about the coronavirus by friends in the playground. He was extremely distressed, refused to touch anything and was convinced everyone in his family was going to die.

Children’s author and mother of four, Ellie Jackson, mentioned this to her illustrator, Laura Callwood from Launceston, who had had a similar experience with her two young children.

Ellie said: “It was obvious to me that my children were picking up information about the virus from lots of different sources. My kids didn’t really understand what was going on and started getting anxious about what might happen.

“I wanted to write a story that would take this uncertainty away and help put the virus into context for them whilst giving them the information they need.”

Together, Ellie and Laura worked near continuously for approximately a week, juggling children, work and family to produce a gentle but informative child friendly picture book called, The Little Corona King, which has already been a great success and help amongst their friends and family. It has also been translated into many different languages for use around the world to help teachers, parents and children in other affected countries.

The eBook follows two young children as their parents explain to them what the coronavirus is, how it relates to their family and how they can help protect themselves and others. It promotes safe practices for families to follow such as hand washing and avoiding crowds, and does so in a gentle and positive way without the need for scaring or upsetting the children.

Ellie said: “This book is not a scaremongering tactic, nor is it wanting people to panic. It is a resource for parents and teachers to use to engage their primary or preschool aged children with simple health practices, reasons why things might change, helping them adjust to possible school closures or self-isolation if needed.

“I am hopeful the messages within the book will help alleviate children’s fears by giving them the information they need to help prevent the spread of coronavirus.”

Laura, who has two young children aged nine and six, has been a professional artist for eight years, working mainly in portraiture but made the move to illustration a few years ago. She said: “I have worked with Ellie on her three previous children’s eco books and we are currently working on a fourth together. We were chatting about the growing concern amongst parents and children about the spread of COVID-19. We both had come across stories of children who were so worried they had made their hands bleed from washing them so often.

“My own son, Freddie, aged six, had come home from school in tears because he was so worried his family were going to die. He had heard snippets of information and playground chat amongst his friends and couldn’t make sense of what was fact. He was too scared to eat food that had fallen off his plate onto the already clean table, just in case it had germs on it and he died.”

It usually takes Laura between eight to 12 weeks to illustrate a book, but she had just two days to complete this one. She added: “I worked quickly in pencil instead of my usual watercolour and stuck to simple, gentle drawings with just enough detail and colour to engage young children.

“Since the book has been released it has had some great reviews and has had a lot of attention! We are really pleased to have been able to create a tool to help ease children’s minds in such a panicked time.”

The Little Corona King is available online in digital format only from iBooks, Google Play and Amazon.