© 2024 NPR Illinois
The Capital's Community & News Service
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Kids Around The World Are Reading NPR's Coronavirus Comic

How do you explain coronavirus to kids?

Last week, we published a comic geared to children about the newly discovered virus. This week we published the comic in Chinese. And we've also learned that the comic has been translated into other languages — including Arabic, Braille, Finnish, Bahasa Indonesia, German and Italian— and is finding an audience in schools and libraries as well as at home.

A graphic designer from Bolivia made a Spanish version of the comic.

Librarians have been printing and folding a bunch of zines and putting them in the children's section at their libraries.

A school psychologist in Lithuania translated the zine into Lithuanian so children in her community could read it.

And here's a translation of the comic in Russian.

A middle-school teacher turned it into a video — with a kid doing the narration.

Another middle-school teacher taught students the art of folding the zine — and added a lesson on how to properly wash hands — in a health class focused on the coronavirus.

And here are some students folding the zine!

And it's not just kids who are reading the comic — adults have reached out and said it's been a helpful resource, too. One person is displaying the zine on his desk.

How have you shared the coronavirus comic with children? We'd love to see how you've used it in a school, library or home setting. Email us at goatsandsoda@npr.org with the subject line "Coronavirus comic."

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Malaka Gharib is the deputy editor and digital strategist on NPR's global health and development team. She covers topics such as the refugee crisis, gender equality and women's health. Her work as part of NPR's reporting teams has been recognized with two Gracie Awards: in 2019 for How To Raise A Human, a series on global parenting, and in 2015 for #15Girls, a series that profiled teen girls around the world.