How to start the conversation about Ukraine with the kids in your life.
We know your kids have questions. Our kids have questions, too.
Articles from The New York Times, CNN, and The Washington Post all ask the same things about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: should grownups be talking to their kids about this? If yes, how do they even start? Since waking up to news headlines flooding all television and social media channels, it can be worrying to think about how much of it kids are consuming, and how we grownups can possibly answer whatever questions they have.
As always, we’re here to start the conversation. Not only do we believe that kids are ready to talk about the hard things in life, but in this case, we believe that kids already know. Kids are already aware of what’s going on from their daily feeds on social media — news headlines are more accessible than ever. So it’s not a matter of if grownups should talk about what’s going on, it’s a matter of how.
In a week’s time, we worked with Sarah Jones to write A Kids Book About War. Sarah Jones is an Emmy award-winning on-air reporter, producer, videographer, and editor with a passion for attracting young audiences to hard news. This book helps explain what war is, why wars start, and what happens after a war — how it can impact all kinds of people with all kinds of backgrounds, traditions and skin colors.
A Kids Book About War doesn’t directly address the world’s current events, nor did we want it to. There have been wars in the past, and, unfortunately, there will be more wars in the future. We wrote this book for the same reason we write books at all: to empower a generation of kids, to help understand the world around them better, wherever they are, whenever they have questions.
With that, this felt like the right book to create with free access — so kids everywhere can find some answers to their questions about war, and so grownups can have some help in kickstarting that conversation.
Free download does come with the opportunity to donate. All proceeds go to benefit children across the globe who are in crisis, across three organizations: UNICEF USA, Doctors Without Borders USA, and War Child Canada.
This is a heavy topic. It affects more people than we can imagine, for longer than we know. A Kids Book About War is relevant now, has been relevant before, and will remain relevant, as long as there are questions about it.
A Kids Book War is available as a free download today.
