Sunny Days Inside and Other Stories

It’s the beginning of the pandemic, and young residents confined to seven apartment units within one building tell their stories, revealing the impact of restrictions on their families’ lives and the resourcefulness brought to making life meaningful. Juliet encourages Reo to train for track events by jogging on the balcony. Conner takes on new responsibilities as he watches his recently unemployed father fall into depression. Two lads use their imagination to live as cave-people for a school project. Louis, a budding entrepreneur, saves his mother’s hairdressing business. Jessica learns sign-language in order to befriend Meena, and, influenced by Harriet the Spy, they are instrumental in saving a life.

Poignant, tender stories blend with lighter or even humorous ones, each recapturing the reality of the emotions surrounding the early days of the pandemic as children and their parents face isolation. They reflect fear of the disease, (exacerbated by the increased activity at the nearby hospital) and loss of normalcy in everyday lives, part of which is the observation of parental distress caused by the situation. The wise stories also capture the irrepressible adaptability of children and their ingenuity in finding hope in their confinement. While stories are about individual families, characters from other stories intersect providing that sense of being part of a community that was so prevalent early in the pandemic.

Beautifully written, each child narrator has their own credible voice, and the portrayal of adults, such as elderly Mrs. Watts or Connor’s dad, are realistic and subtly drawn. Children will enjoy this wise and entertaining book all the more for the recognizable pandemic setting with which they are all familiar and for the optimism it provides.