In my video “Best Children's Books with Daria Nevskaya”, I talk about wonderful children's books that help children understand themselves and adults. The video focuses on the topic of an adult's responsibility for someone else's child who needs support or help. In my video, I present the Samokat series “The Savior and Son” by contemporary French writer Marie-Aude Muray, author of more than 80 novels for children and teenagers, including the novels Miss Cherity and Smart Man. I also mention the book “I Keep Your Letters Under My Mattress: Correspondence 1971-2002” (The White Raven Publishing House). This is a correspondence between girl Sarah Shward and children's writer Astrid Lindgren, which lasted intermittently from 1971 to 2002. And I'm explaining why I don't like this correspondence. I was recording videos after NG and didn't yet know that the virus and isolation were waiting for us. Now I would like to add to my idea about the need for active help from someone else's adult in a situation where a child is in danger. I'm horrified to think about how many domestic abused children are left locked in apartments with their domestic tyrants. They only have the opportunity to share their problem on social media. But will they ask for help via social media? Will they even seek help from an adult they trust on social media or over the phone? In all these books, only live communication allowed an adult to conclude that the child was not doing well in the family. And these adults helped the children themselves, not expecting them to ask for help. How can we help a child now if we can't see what's going on behind closed doors? In a situation of quarantine and isolation, only close relatives can help victims of domestic emotional or domestic violence. I am convinced that relatives know or are aware of what is happening in these families, where outbursts of aggression against family members are the norm. And here it is very important to simply keep in touch via phone, video call or social media with potential victims of domestic violence, especially children. Without asking your child direct questions, but only by talking to him regularly, you can almost always understand what is going on in the family. And then proceed according to the circumstances and be very careful. Sometimes the mere fact of such a regular conversation can support a child or teenager. And our situation has once again confirmed that we need to teach children to ask for help.
The Book of All Things by Guus Keier (Samokat Publishing House) is another important book that allows us to understand what happens to the psyche of children who are exposed to domestic violence. Talking about these wonderful books for children and teenagers, I emphasize how important it is for a child to meet an intelligent and compassionate adult who can support them in situations of loneliness, fear and abandonment. In many good children's books, an alien adult appears who essentially saves a child by lending him a helping hand during difficult moments in life. The main thing is for the child to be able to ask for help. I'll name a few more books where such caring adults who have played an important role in children's lives meet: David Mitchell's Random House, Annette Huising's How I Accidentally Wrote a Book (The White Crow), Dina Sabitova's Where There's No Winter (Scooter), Holly Sloane I'm Counting Seven (Career Press”). All these books have the theme of “magic assistant”, but this is not a fairy tale, and the magic lies in the fact that an attentive adult simply provides support to someone else's child that changes his life for the better
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