Covid-19 Helpers is a story for kids about the coronavirus and the people helping during the 2020 pandemic. In April 2020, just after the virus became a crisis in the United States, I was moved by all of the people going out of their way to make positive contributions—all of the healthcare workers, the food bank staff members, even the public utility teams who were putting on masks and, well, helping.

I said to myself, “I’m a writer. How can I help, too?”

The answer was simple: I could write a children’s book. Online, I saw that a writer friend posted a call for entries for an ebook contest sponsored by Emory Global Health Institute (EGHI). The deadline was in two weeks, so there wasn’t much time. Still, I had to try.

Images from COVID-19 Helpers book

I wrote up a simple story and asked Kary Lee to illustrate the book. She did a fantastic job with her whimsical, colorful eye. I combined the book and the text in a clean simple layout and within hours of the deadline, submitted the PDF. Two weeks later we learned that our book won first prize! The book is available in PDF form at the EGHI website.

A PDF ebook is a great way to get the book out to many people quickly. But a lot of librarians, teachers, and families wanted a paper version of the book to share with children. So under the Pixel Titles brand, I created a self published version of the book. Soon, the orders for this book grew to an amount that was larger than I could handle. I asked around.

So I am happy to announce that as of today, Blair Publishing will be taking over the printing and distribution of the book in several languages. It now exists in English, Spanish, Indonesian. An Amharic version is coming soon.