Cyrus the Virus

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Inspiration

My little son, Oscar inspired me to write this story. He was so confused about the sudden changes going on around him that I had to find a way to help him make sense of it. As a social worker who specializes in infant mental health and childhood trauma, I really felt the emotional impact of this situation on my child and I worried for the children of the world. I wanted to do what I could to help.

What it does

My hope is that the story reassures and helps children to externalise the changes going on around them by creating a tangible character whom we can all talk about. As little children are very egocentric I didn’t want my child or other children to feel that they could no longer go to the park, see friends and family because they were somehow at fault or in trouble. We needed a simple way to talk about the changes happening in our home, in the streets and in our behavior that wasn’t terrifying and would provide some level of understanding and reassurance.

How I built it

I wrote and illustrated the story over a 2 week period. During the day I ran ideas by my son who guided the whole process. Oscar helped me develop the illustration of Cyrus with his very important comments such as “no he’s too scary!” “not orange it has to be black!”. He guided the content with the issues that were most worrying for him. It was tricky to work out just how much information I needed to include so he guided this too. In the evenings I would try to get my creativity going between the hours of 7pm and 1am each night to get the book ready ASAP! That was the quietest time in the house where I could just sit, concentrate, put the pages all over the floor and get into a rhythm. I have very little skills in putting such things together but found a wonderful app called unfold that helped me create the book in a PDF version.

Challenges I ran into

It was really hard to work out just how much information I needed to include. At the time of writing, I also felt very overwhelmed and scared about what was going on. As I wrote the various drafts, I realized that the process was helping me to make sense of the situation too. Once the initial (much more detailed and complex) version was written, only then could I properly work out exactly which bits were relevant and important for children.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

Personally: I am thrilled that my child has adapted to this situation so well and has found a narrative for it that makes sense to him and our family. Oscar developed tonsillitis during this isolation period and we had to go to the doctor and have a Covid test. The doctor was fully dressed in her covid outfit which frankly was terrifying to both of us. Luckily our doctor has read the story of Cyrus the Virus and reassured Oscar that she was dressed like that because she was fighting against him to send him home. That provided instant relief and understanding! I was thrilled! In sharing the story it was my hope that we could all develop a common language/concept for our children during this time so that it could be used across contexts to provide support and understanding to our tiny humans.

More broadly: I decided to share the story of Cyrus the Virus when I realized that this might help other children in the way that it helped Oscar. Within 48 hours the story had been downloaded 22,000 times and by the end of the week it had been translated into Spanish and German and turned into two YouTube videos. I was so grateful and humbled to have produced something that was helpful to children around the world.

What I learned

I learned that no matter how difficult a situation, we can always find a way of helping and supporting others. I also learned how much good there is in the world. When I shared the story I was overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity of others and the shared desire we all had to help our children.

What's next for Cyrus the Virus

Hopefully Cyrus the Virus will go home and we will never have to think about him again!
In the future, I would like to continue to write stories for adults and children. I would like to turn complex academic ideas from the field of child development, attachment, infant mental health etc accessible, simple and applicable through the platform of picture story books.

Built With

• unfold