Written during the time of the Coronavirus pandemic, A New Day is a story of hope and love. It reassures children that difficult times will pass while encouraging them to appreciate the moment and understand that life’s simple pleasures are the most meaningful. Beautifully illustrated with vivid, uplifting images and written in a clear, rich text. Includes diary pages for children (or parents) to record their feelings, places they want to go, how they spent their days in lockdown and to write a note to their future selves as an important historical record of each child’s experience during this extraordinary time. A New Day will provide hope, comfort and strength to children, parents and educators alike. A percentage of all proceeds will be donated to charities that help vulnerable families and children cope with the crisis. Note to parents, carers and educators  The Coronavirus pandemic will be recorded and remembered as an extraordinary time in human history. The story of humanity is marked by progress, discovery and creativity. But it also characterised by turbulence, upheaval, revolution, war and indeed pandemic. That a health crisis should befall mankind in our time, should therefore be of no surprise. Yet the Coronavirus pandemic has shaken us to our core. For all our rapid advancements, unprecedented freedoms, access to information, and abundance of choice, we have been left isolated, anxious, and deeply unsettled. In the space of mere weeks, daily routines of work, family, leisure, that we had each carefully created over many years to give rhythm, balance and stability to our lives, crashed to nothing. Our interactions, the handshake, the kiss, the embrace, physical proximity to our fellow man, customs that have evolved over thousands of years to make us feel loved, valued and safe, suddenly ground to a terrible halt. To add to all this, there is the dread of financial insecurity, anxiety over the ability to obtain basic household items, and the fear that this enigmatic, creeping disease will strike us or the ones we love. We can perhaps only compare these times to living through a world war. Think now how this must be for our children. Children are resilient and adaptable. Unaffected by the insecurities and preoccupations we adults carry with us like heavy luggage, they are quick to forget, quick to move forward and ready to focus on what they have rather than what they have lost. And yet, the sudden loss of their classrooms, their sporting and social activities, their playgrounds, contact with their friends, and the withdrawal of physical affection from grandparents, is something truly profound. They sense the nervous tension of their parents. They witness the increased squabbling from lives upended and now lived at suffocatingly close quarters. Experienced for a prolonged period of time, all this could take a terrible toll on them. But if we are resolute and focused on the well-being of our children; if we can hold firm in the belief that this crisis, like all before it, will eventually pass; something quite remarkable begins to happen. We begin to see that this brief stanza in human history may indeed leave us permanently changed, but in some ways, it could change us for the better. Suddenly deprived of so much, we begin to understand what is trivial and what really counts. A walk in the park, exercise, social contact, family, health. We are reminded to be grateful and not to take anything for granted. We begin to value the teachers whose patience must be superhuman. We appreciate the doctors and nurses and first-responders, those who live their lives in the service of others. It may be that once this terrible virus passes, we will quickly slip back into the routines of old and will emerge as self-absorbed as we ever were. This book was written not only to help children through difficult times but to hold onto the good that has come from a miserable situation. It aims to foster resilience and a sense of hope and optimism in our children and in ourselves. And it seeks to remind us all, not just during this crisis, what is really important in life.  A beautiful story of hope, love and always finding the positive no matter how great the adversity. Alex Ryvchin is a writer, public speaker and advocate. He is the author of two books of history and politics and lives in Sydney, Australia with his wife and three daughters.