On National Hugging Day a best-selling author shares socially distanced ideas to connect people By Louise Glen
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Updated: 12:42, 21 January 2021
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Eoin McLaughlin.
A best-selling childrenâs author who wrote about how to show socially distant love is encouraging people to find alternatives to hugging this year on National Hugging Day as part of Eden Project Communities #WinterWarmers campaign saying âYou canât put a price on giving someone a hugâ.
A childrenâs author whose book While We Canât Hug explores how we can show our love whilst remaining socially distant has encouraged people to think of different ways to reach out, whilst we might not be able to hug on National Hugging Day.
The Hopkinsville-Christian County Public Library is hosting a winter-themed StoryWalk through January.
The new StoryWalk, in partnership with Hopkinsville Parks & Recreation, features “While We Can’t Hug” by Eoin McLaughlin and “Snowmen at Night” by Caralyn Buehner.
The StoryWalk Project was created by Anne Ferguson of Montpelier, Vermont. This outdoor reading experience walks families page-by-page through the stories with bonus activities throughout.
The StoryWalk is located along the Rail Trail near the dog park through Jan. 4.
The library is also gifting holiday grab-and-go activity packets on Dec. 19. They will have Shrinky Dinks for tweens and teens and plastic canvas snowmen for adults 19 or older.
High Rise Mystery series, which updates the children’s detective genre for our times.
Children’s literature has a long relationship with the uncanny. My very favourite 2020 book was a little bit
Addams Family, and a little bit metaphysical.
The Monsters of Rookhaven (Macmillan) by Pádraig Kenny imagined a village where the resident monsters keep to themselves in exchange for what scarce meat the villagers can tithe to them in wartime.
When a human girl and her injured brother accidentally wander into the monsters’ garden, one misfit monster-girl – Mirabelle – makes friends and is soon forced into a series of choices. This beautifully written debut had everything: superb illustrations by Edward Bettison and villagers storming the manor with flaming torches to the horror of the monsters. Spoiler alert: the much-feared power of the most terrible creature of them all turns out to be the ability to understand another’s mind.
on social media
Ss Covid-19 tightened its grip in March, forcing schools, bookshops, and libraries to close, so the children’s book world responded in characteristically generous style, producing an explosion of free online content to educate, entertain and support children and families. Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler created a series of Covid-related cartoons featuring beloved characters (“The Gruffalos stayed in the Gruffalo cave’”) and children’s laureate Cressida Cowell read daily chapters of How to Train Your Dragon. Picture book creator Rob Biddulph became a viral phenomenon thanks to his Draw With Rob videos, culminating in no less than a Guinness world record for the largest online art class when 45,611 people joined him in drawing a whale. A whole new Covid category of children’s books was born, both instructional and inspirational. There was Coronavirus: A Book for Children about Covid-19 (Nosy Crow), While We Can’t Hug by Eoin McLaughlin and