What Will Today Bring – Poignant view of coping with disaster

What will today bring is a picture book about a young child’s experience coping with disaster. This book is a great way for children to learn empathy for those facing civil disasters, to get inside the shoes of children displaced by natural disasters. This would be a very suitable story for classroom study when fundraising for communities in need following a natural disaster.

Author: Chrissi Nerantzi, Illustrator: Gail Spencer

Examples of Exercises to Complete Based on the Book:

1. Write about how you would feel if your town was struck by disaster, what are some of your fears and what would
you be most upset about.

2. Talk about some ways you can help others who are facing disaster

3. Discuss or implement some fund raising ideas.

4. Talk about the spend, save donate as a concept, and how donations can help those in need.

Text From What Will Today Bring – Coping with Disaster

Something is burning my eyelids.
I open my eyes and look around. Where am I? Sea, sun and hot sand. A beach?
What is all that noise?

How did I get here? Where are Mummy and Daddy? Where is Hope? The noise is getting louder and louder.
I want to go home.
I close my eyes and imagine.

It all came back to me.
Broken houses. Broken people.
Trying to swim, in the water, clinging on… a piece of wood. Mummy, Daddy? Hope?

What happened next?
I can’t remember.
Who are these people? Why do I not understand them? A little girl gives me her teddy.

I am holding on to teddy. With both hands.
I am looking around. And around.
Where is my Mummy? Daddy? Hope?
My eyes fill up, like the sea. They become the sea.

Where are we going?
I am in a room with pictures. Happy pictures. Mountains of toys. Clothes. Food.
Girls and boys with sad eyes.

Where are Mummy and Daddy? Hope? I still feel their warmth.
But they are not here.
I run out of the room.

I keep running and running.
No familiar faces. None.
People are crying, others laughing. “We made it,” they shout.

I hold on to teddy.
I hold on and look around. It is just me.
Nobody I know.

Nobody.
Suddenly a familiar voice reached my ear… I turned around.
My eyes lit up.

I run. With teddy. It was Hope.
My heart started beating again.
She squeezes me hard and doesn’t let go. We look out to the sea.

Hope shows me a picture.
We just sit there. In silence. With teddy. It got dark and then light again.
“What will today bring?” I ask Hope…

<End of Text from What Will Today Bring>

About the story and this book…

This open picture book was created to raise awareness of children in need and find ways to help them. Experiences in the family of the author and current traumatic situations in many parts of the world, triggered the writing of the story as a response, a personal voice that was united with the illustrator’s voice and became this picture book.
The pictures are part of the story and accompany the reader to immerse themselves into the story through creating opportunities to extend their interpretation of them and contribute to them. This is the rationale behind using this type of pictures. So feel free to add to the pictures, personalise them. And please share them back as we would love to see your versions.
We hope that our story will be translated into other languages and travel around the world. Please get in touch if you have any comments or suggestions and if you could help finance a possible publication of a printed version to raise money for children in need.
Thank you for engaging with our story and Dr Meriel Lland and Amy Turner for their help during the creative process.
Chrissi Nerantzi and Gail Spencer c.nerantzi@mmu.ac.uk and g.spencer@mmu.ac.uk
… an experiment, part of #creativeHE https://plus.google.com/communities/110898703741307769041

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