This book is like Captain Tom but for children! I know adults and children alike rallied around Captain Tom but this book so well encapsulates the mind and thoughts of a child who was going through the Covid 19 pandemic. Williams’ gives Max such an authentic voice that you can’t help but see the world through the eyes of an eight year old. Williams’ did a wonderful job of capturing how children of that age think and feel and really gets across how they are sometimes confused by our adults explanations and how they cope with this by visualising concepts and themes in a very different way to our adult brains!
Our story starts as covid is but a mere whisper amongst our adult characters, Max leads a relatively normal life of that of an 8 year old, his mum is a nutritionist and his dad is a doctor at the local hospital. With his upcoming birthday party, school, friends and visiting family Max very clearly has lots going on to keep him busy and entertained so doesn’t pay much attention to when grownups mention corona virus. As our story progresses Max starts to notice that his parents are acting a little differently, they seem more distracted than usual and for the first time ever, dad doesn’t finish his food! Then one night at dinner he is asked by his parents if he has heard anyone mention coronavirus, at this point Max has heard it but not really payed attention, his parents ask him to let him know if school mentions it and just to carry on, not worry and make sure to always wash his hands before eating.
I like how we get snippets of information at the start, as Max would have experienced, (we all know what’s coming), but we went through the pandemic as adults who had access to information as it was given to us and very different coping mechanisms and ways of understanding what was happening, for Max it’s simply on the periphery until it starts changing his life in ways he doesn’t like or understand.
As the story progresses we are now following along with Max as he tries to make sense of a world that has become very different to his norm and one that is now quite frightening and very confusing. It’s all well and good explaining the terms to him but we get to really feel how Max still really doesn’t understand why he can’t go to school, see friends and family or his confusion over what will happen to his upcoming birthday party. Williams does a great job of telling a story that was very real for so many people, they experienced the splitting of households and the isolation of work and learn from home and Max goes through that too as his dad decides to move into a local hotel due his job at the hospital.
It is the stress of missing his dad amongst other things and not understanding that he simply cannot speak to his mum whilst she is working from home that causes Max to get angry and yell and it is here that we start off Max’s counting journey. As a way to calm down his mum tells Max to go to his room and count to 100, and Max simply doesn’t stop! Although he doesn’t realise the task he has set himself to count to million it helps him add some control to his life and his challenge soon starts to gather attention and as people praise his efforts he starts to raise money for charity.
Overall this book is lovely, it’s something I enjoyed even out of the target audience age and I’ve gone on to pass it around some of my pupils. As an adult it really helped me see the pandemic from a child’s perspective and I couldn’t help but fall in love with the characters and relate so heavily to so much. We all share the commonality now of the pandemic and especially in the early days experienced so much of the same trials and tribulations.
Please pick this book up! Especially as £1 from each sale goes to NHS charities, you won’t regret it.
Our story starts as covid is but a mere whisper amongst our adult characters, Max leads a relatively normal life of that of an 8 year old, his mum is a nutritionist and his dad is a doctor at the local hospital. With his upcoming birthday party, school, friends and visiting family Max very clearly has lots going on to keep him busy and entertained so doesn’t pay much attention to when grownups mention corona virus. As our story progresses Max starts to notice that his parents are acting a little differently, they seem more distracted than usual and for the first time ever, dad doesn’t finish his food! Then one night at dinner he is asked by his parents if he has heard anyone mention coronavirus, at this point Max has heard it but not really payed attention, his parents ask him to let him know if school mentions it and just to carry on, not worry and make sure to always wash his hands before eating.
I like how we get snippets of information at the start, as Max would have experienced, (we all know what’s coming), but we went through the pandemic as adults who had access to information as it was given to us and very different coping mechanisms and ways of understanding what was happening, for Max it’s simply on the periphery until it starts changing his life in ways he doesn’t like or understand.
As the story progresses we are now following along with Max as he tries to make sense of a world that has become very different to his norm and one that is now quite frightening and very confusing. It’s all well and good explaining the terms to him but we get to really feel how Max still really doesn’t understand why he can’t go to school, see friends and family or his confusion over what will happen to his upcoming birthday party. Williams does a great job of telling a story that was very real for so many people, they experienced the splitting of households and the isolation of work and learn from home and Max goes through that too as his dad decides to move into a local hotel due his job at the hospital.
It is the stress of missing his dad amongst other things and not understanding that he simply cannot speak to his mum whilst she is working from home that causes Max to get angry and yell and it is here that we start off Max’s counting journey. As a way to calm down his mum tells Max to go to his room and count to 100, and Max simply doesn’t stop! Although he doesn’t realise the task he has set himself to count to million it helps him add some control to his life and his challenge soon starts to gather attention and as people praise his efforts he starts to raise money for charity.
Overall this book is lovely, it’s something I enjoyed even out of the target audience age and I’ve gone on to pass it around some of my pupils. As an adult it really helped me see the pandemic from a child’s perspective and I couldn’t help but fall in love with the characters and relate so heavily to so much. We all share the commonality now of the pandemic and especially in the early days experienced so much of the same trials and tribulations.
Please pick this book up! Especially as £1 from each sale goes to NHS charities, you won’t regret it.