When the Raccoon family is forced to stay home from work and school because of the terrible new illness abroad in the world, they find that it takes some adjustment for five raccoons to spend so much time together in close proximity. The three children get irritated with one another, and sometimes argue, and they have questions about what is going on, and how long this situation is going to last. Fortunately, their patient parents and the loving bond they all share gets them through the rough patches, as they work and play together, waiting for the time when it will be safe to go back to their old lives...

Published in April of this year (2020), Staying Home is a new picture-book from British children's author Sally Nichols and expatriate German illustrator Viviane Schwarz, and addresses itself to the experiences of one family during the Coronavirus lockdown. Although it does contain some basic information about the virus, and the steps necessary to combat it - lockdown, social distancing, frequent hand-washing - it is mostly about the social issues attendant upon a family group accustomed to spending much of their days apart, suddenly finding themselves all together, all the time, for the foreseeable future. It is an engaging tale, sensitively depicting the Raccoon children's natural frustration at the situation, and will no doubt strike a chord with many young children today. The accompanying artwork from Schwarz, whose many books include There Are Cats in This Book and its companions, is colorful and expressive. Recommended to anyone seeking children's stories about the experience of Covid-19 lockdown. The book can be read for free online, HERE.

For parents looking for more online resources and ebooks for children addressing this crisis, the New York City School Library System has put together a list of free titles available worldwide, which can be found here:
https://nycdoe.libguides.com/COVID-19ebooks/free ( )