Bray Bray Conquers the Coronavirus

Bray Bray Conquers the Coronavirus Front Cover
Bray Bray Conquers the Coronavirus Back Cover

Inspiration

In 2016, I was inspired to start The Adventures of Bray Bray series when my first nephew turned two years old. I searched the bookstores for children’s picture books with little Black boys as characters and couldn’t find any. The search continued online, and I only found one age appropriate book with a Black boy as the main character. This was disappointing and frustrating for me and I thought “I’ll just do it myself!” My mind was made up on pursuing this project, but I had absolutely no idea what creating a children’s picture book entailed. So, I ordered a book on self-publishing and started to develop a plan. Shortly after, I reached out to a fellow University of Florida alumna, Joanah Whitely.

Joanah and I discussed my goals for this series, to highlight diversity in ethnicity, race, ability, and family background while addressing difficult topics in a developmentally appropriate way. She immediately agreed to partner to create this series and we began working on the first book, That’s My Baby. This book served as an introduction to the main character, my nephew Bray Bray, while promoting positive self-esteem.

Once my sister-in-law, Bray Bray’s mother, sent me the flyer for this children’s picture book competition, I knew that this project would be our second book in the series. As a doctoral trainee providing teletherapy services for children and families during this pandemic it is clear to me that they are having a hard time coping with transitions and loss related to COVID-19. Parents are also finding it difficult to explain all of these changes to their children. Furthermore, on a systemic level, this pandemic is forcing a painful acknowledgement of longstanding racial health disparities in the U.S. and the various factors contributing to these disparities (e.g., living conditions, work circumstances, underlying health conditions, and lower access to care). Data indicates that Black Americans are disproportionately being hospitalized and dying due to COVID-19 (Garg et al., 2020). So, although this book is for everyone, Joanah and I hope that Bray Bray’s character will especially connect with the Black communities that are disproportionately affected by this pandemic.

Aims

Our goal for this book, Bray Bray Conquers the Coronavirus, was to do our best with the information that we have to help facilitate conversations between parents and their children about COVID-19. Using rhyme and brevity, we aimed to address the following: (a) review what we know about COVID-19 symptoms, (b) review the main Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations, (c) provide validation for the emotions that some children may be experiencing right now, and (d) initiate a discussion on how children can develop their own useful coping mechanisms to get through this pandemic.

Process

Our process began with me writing the text, and then discussing with Joanah what I hoped to see in the illustrations. After we determined what we wanted the images to look like Joanah began her artistic process which involves: (a) sketching the drawings in pencil, (b) us meeting to review the sketches, (c) incorporating my feedback in the sketches, (d) painting the images with watercolor paints, (e) uploading the images in photoshop, (f) and editing the images. Joanah then sent the final images to me, and I uploaded them to Canva (a graphic design web-based program). After uploading these images, I added the text to the pages, adjusted the font, and oriented each image onto the cover and interior pages. The watercolor swatches were chosen for the covers and blank interior pages due to its perfect match with Joanah’s watercolor illustrations. Finally, I downloaded the cover and interior pages of the book into a PDF and asked several close friends and family members to review and provide feedback on the draft. This feedback was incorporated into the final product.

Challenges and Accomplishments

Challenges faced since the start of this series have involved a lack of resources (i.e., time, appropriate technological appliances, and manpower). Our resources have been stretched thin due to my responsibilities as a Counseling Psychology student in a Ph.D. program and Joanah’s responsibilities on a regional leadership team of an international company. These challenges have remained constant throughout our partnership, and this competition was no exception.

Despite the ongoing challenges we’ve faced since the start of this series we have managed to keep pushing through! Completing this project, Bray Bray Conquers the Coronavirus, has reminded Joanah and I of why we are doing this work and reinvigorated us to continue this passion project.

What's Next

Joanah and I hope to promote this book on our social media platforms for children and families at home and via children’s hospitals. We plan to convert Bray Bray Conquers the Coronavirus to a digital flipbook and provide it to the public, free of charge. Additionally, our plan includes working on a third children’s picture book in the series about coping with grief. This book will be useful for children and families who have lost family members to COVID-19 or any other cause of death.

Our hope is that our passion and care is reflected in this book and in our future books. Happy reading!

Reference

Garg, S., Kim, L., Whitaker, M., O’Halloran, A., Cummings, C., Holstein, R.,…Fry, A. (2020). Hospitalization rates and characteristics of patients hospitalized with laboratory-confirmed Coronavirus disease 2019 — COVID-NET, 14 states, March 1–30, 2020. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 69, 458–464. doi:10.15585/mmwr.mm6915e3