Making masks fun
Greenwich co-author’s new book aims at helping children during the pandemic
“We just really wanted to make sure that kids knew the world and all fun didn’t have to come to an end because there’s a pandemic underway.” Arwen Evans
GREENWICH — Sisters Arwen Evans and Ashley Wheelock were spurred into action this spring when they committed to co- authoring and publishing their second book.
The inspiration came in May, when Evans and her family headed out to visit another relative. It was the first time her young children had left their Old Greenwich home after weeks of isolation while quarantining during the COVID-19 crisis.
It was also the first time she and her husband asked their children to wear masks. Their middle daughter, Kit, who was 3 at the time, “had a fit” and ran away screaming as soon as she tried on the mask, Evans said.
“She just hated it,” Evans said. Wheelock, who lives in California, had a similar experience with her young children when it came to wearing masks.
“And we kind of left that experience kind of feeling like we really needed to (write) this (book), and we needed to do this as quickly as possible,” she said.
On Sept. 3, just in time for the start of the school year, the sisters released their new book, “The Safe Return,” which features young children engaged on a balance bike adventure.
The sisters called it “a flip book” because, when read from front to back, it showcases children on their bike adventure while wearing masks. But when read from back to front, the book features children with no masks.
“We really wrote the book so that we could normalize the wearing of masks while there’s this pandemic going on, but also to make sure that kids knew they could go out and have a good time, and have a bike riding adventure with friends and can be safe,” Evans said.
“We just really wanted to make sure that kids knew the
world and all fun didn’t have to come to an end because there’s a pandemic underway,” she said.
The story line depicts young children on balance bikes, a type of learner’s bicycle that has no pedals, that require riders to use their feet to move forward.
Few children’s books have featured this type of bike, which piqued Evan’s interests, she said. The mother of three said that she and her family members are avid bike riders, often biking around Tod’s Point.
The two-sided book is “very stripped back,” with few words because the co- authors wanted to focus on the motion of bike riding through the illustrations.
The sisters embrace fun — their first book was called “We Toot: A Feminist Fable About Farting.”
In May, when the coauthors began working
on the book, they knew the deadline would be tight if they wanted to release the book at the beginning of the school
year. The book’s illustrator, Abigail Gray Swartz, faced the biggest challenge, Evans said.
“She was open ... even
though she had her kids to watch at home,” Evans said of the illustrator, who worked under the tight deadline while her
children were remote learning with no childcare.
“She worked really, really hard and we worked with her on what we wanted the mood to be, which is upbeat and hopeful but also moodier than some children’s books,” Evans said. “It’s a dusk-timed bike ride, but there’s a lot of pinks and purples in the sunset and it turned out so beautifully.”
Through extensive training in school — and through work published in the New Yorker and the New York Times — Gray Swartz said she understands the significance of creating a diverse cast of characters.
The protagonist in the book is Asian. There’s a non-binary child and a “brown set” of twins.
“With my own artwork, representation really matters, especially with kids,” Gray Swartz said.
“I think it’s important for kids to see a variety of different types of kids. That was something I learned like seven years
ago when I started doing editorial work,” she said.
The inspiration for the character’s “funky” clothing comes from her own children’s garb, Gray Swartz said.
“It’s a very colorful, fun book, and it’s neat because kids aren’t often outside at that time of day,” at sunset, which is near bedtime, she said. “It just makes it extra magical, I think.”
Evans said she hopes parents, teachers and librarians share the book with the children in their lives to show that they can still go outside and have fun — but they need their masks to be safe.
“Kids do learn so much about the world (from) books and from the books their parents read them,” she said.
“No matter which way you read it, the book reinforces the joys and freedoms of childhood and advocates for a safe return to fun,” Evans said.