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Lynn author writes children’s book on COVID-19
By Steve Krause | April 21, 2020
LYNN — All Nicole Rim wants out of her book on the coronavirus is to soothe the frayed nerves of children throughout the region who watch the news and hear terrifying things.
That’s how she got the idea to write a 36-page online book called “King COVID and the Kids who Cared,” a children’s book that tries to put the virus in terms they can understand.
A graphic designer by trade, Rim, 40, did all her own illustrations, including painting the virus as a circle with crowns that a king might wear.
The definition of “corona,” when it doesn’t have the word “virus” attached to it, is a crown-like ring around the sun. Scientists who examined the original coronavirus under microscopes in 1968 thought it resembled that crown. Hence, the name.
“I’m not a great drawer,” said Rim, “but as a graphic designer I have the tools to match the illustrations with what I was writing.”
Rim started the book as an outgrowth of her work with the Living Fields Church on Johnson Street — a small Cambodian church that serves immigrant families.
“I had initially wanted to write a book for children about my church,” she said, “When coronavirus spring up, I was thinking about these young kids, and how they’re navigating through all the questions.
“I’m sure they hear what’s on the news,” she said. “Kids pick up a lot, especially from those who are in families with language barriers. I just thought about what I could do to help.”
And what she could do, she decided, was write something for children to understand that was “clear, concise and still fun to read for them.”
So, she decided to embark on this project.
“I knew time wasn’t on my side,” she said. “I wanted to produce something as fast as I could, that I could quickly email to the kids that I knew and see what they thought.”
It wasn’t as if this was all she had to do. She still carried a full-time job during the day.
“I pulled a few all-nighters pushing this book out as fast as possible,” she said. “I am a person of faith. I am a Christian, and I attribute a lot of (what I did) to the Lord.
“I had to push myself. There were a lot of sleepless nights … writing, rewriting, crossing things out, and then illustrating.”
Rim said the words flowed, “but it’s not because I’m brilliant, or anything like that. I think the urgency of all this made me work extra hard.”
She also was listening to NPR one day and heard a scientist describe how the virus burrows into the body and does its damage.
“It wreaks havoc,” she said. “He was very descriptive. He said it uses its ‘crown’ to unlock the cells.”
And that’s when she came up with the idea to draw the virus as a big circle with small crown-like elements all around its rim (similar to the illustrations of the virus commonly seen in diagrams).
Rim finished the book in a week and a half and had a friend and a cousin edit it.
“The feedback on it was very positive,” she said. “A few days after I started showing it around, I built a web page and posted to it so that it could be easily downloaded.”
The book contains “some of the things parents already taught (children), like how to watch their hands, coughing into their elbows. I wanted to encourage these actions,” she said. “When we care, we think of others and put others first.”
Rim said she is a big advocate for children. “They absorb so much, and they have the ability to really make a difference.”
She still hasn’t thought about what the book might bring in terms of profits.
“My intention was never to gain a profit,” she said, “but to get this in the hands of kids to read so they could be informed, encouraged and empowered. And to care for themselves and care about others.”