The Great Realization

PreS-Gr 2–Set in an abstract future, a young boy asks his older brother to share a bedtime story about the time of the virus of 2020. It was a time when people had lost their way, when humans were lost to a world of environmental degradation, technology, and corporate greed. Then a virus came and changed how people behaved. During a time when everyone was forced to slow down and live differently, they managed to find hope and inspiration for a different way of living. The story, in the form of a picture book poem, was originally released as a short video that went viral on social media platforms in this past spring. It featured the author reading the poem as a bedtime story to his younger brother and sister in an effort to offer a more optimistic response to fears and anxiety caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Nomoco’s artistic ink and watercolor illustrations serve as an understated backdrop for the text. In the introduction, the author is careful to assert that he does not wish to negate the many hardships caused by the virus, but instead offers a message of hope and optimism in a time of great difficulties.