coronavirus

Here in California, we’re now starting our third week of the COVID-19 shelter-in-place order. It’s rough, and I’m eating WAY too many peanut butter cups and using too much alliteration in my blog post titles. But I know I have it easy compared to some others–I’m looking at you, parents who suddenly find yourselves thrust into the roles of teachers. Who are on around the clock. With no help. While possibly also trying to work another full-time job. I feel for you.

Books are here to help! Reading is not only a great way for kids to bridge the learning gap while they’re out of school, but it might just be a way for parents to buy a few moments of peace and quiet as well. As an educator and writer, I’ve rounded up some great spots where you can get free or discounted books for this moment. I’m touched by all the ways that publishers, authors, and booksellers have shown up to make literacy accessible to all in this time. So sail away with a book from these sources!

Check your library’s website for ebooks and audiobooks you can borrow for free!

2. Audible.com is offering a selection of audiobooks free during this time! The books are grouped for different ages, from preschool through teens, but the list also includes a number of classics that are great listens for any age.

3. Many classic books are available as free Kindle downloads on Amazon.

4. Bookbub.com offers a weekly roundup of ebooks you can get for free or at a steep discount. You choose the genres you’re interested in, and they’ll send you a selection of deals by email every week.

5. Smashwords.com offers a huge selection of ebooks at a wide range of prices. Right now they’re running a sale called “Authors Give Back,” in which many authors have discounted their titles through April 20 (The Illuminator’s Gift is only $2)!

6. Looking for paper copies? Local stores are closed, but independent booksellers like Books Inc. are still fulfilling online orders (with free shipping)!

7. And let’s finish out with some fun! The first 10 people to send me a Facebook message will get a free promo code for one of my audiobooks! Just tell me something fun you’ve been doing to stay sane while sheltering in place, and which audiobook you’d like. Choose from The Illuminator’s Gift (#1), The Illuminator’s Test (#2), or The Illuminator Rising (#3)!

Books not only fill the time; they also teach us how to live and cope in the midst of the stress and boredom and cabin fever. I hope these resources bring you some joyful reading in these crazy days!

If you’re not up to the minute on the global COVID-19 pandemic, you’ve probably been living under a rock (and for now you should probably stay there). For me, it’s difficult to read any amount of news without a raised pulse. The situation is unfolding moment by moment, especially here in the San Francisco Bay Area, and each new development seems worse than the last. Today officials in several Bay Area counties issued a shelter-in-place order that will last at least three weeks, so we are all now hunkering down with our stocks of snacks and (oh-so-precious?) toilet paper.

But I don’t need to tell you that.

What I’ve been thinking about, partly to help myself stay calm in the midst of all the anxiety, are the things coronavirus can’t touch. It is easy to feel helpless, to feel defeated, by such a complete global crisis. But one of the reasons I love fantasy literature is that it clearly delineates the conflict between good and evil, and it instills a strong sense that good will win out in the end–if we choose it.

So here’s where I see goodness, hope, joy, and love still very much alive and well, even in the time of coronavirus.

I see it in the faces of a few friends sharing a home-cooked meal (albeit a few days ago), practicing social distancing yet closing all the distance between them.

I see it in a homemade Communion of white wine and sandwich bread, dipped with washed hands and shared among family members around the kitchen table.

I see it in Netflix nights and blanket forts.

I see it in slow-cooked meals made from scratch, savoring the preparation and enjoyment of joyous flavors.

*(Do you know what these are? They are DUMPLINGS that I made FROM SCRATCH!)*

I see it in church services held on Facebook Live, the viewer count in the upper left corner ticking higher and higher as community comes together.

I see it in connection with elderly neighbors, standing six feet away, yet knowing they are provided for and not alone.

I see it in the slower pace of life, hectic schedules replaced with time for the classic introverted pleasures: good books and movies, writing projects, self-taught skills, feel-good music.

*(A sign I saw in a bookstore window a few weeks ago.)*

I see it in video chats with loved ones, the screen jerking and halting as a five-year-old bolts up the stairs to show off her dolls.

And I see it not least in my puppy, whose passions for snuggles and crunchy apples are undimmed by any number of global crises.

Though I am terribly afraid and confused and uncertain of the future, there is love, love, love, tenacious and unstoppable, pushing up through the sidewalks and jetting out through the cracks of pandemic lockdown–through text, video, Facebook Live, six-foot-distant smiles in the grocery store, and around the kitchen table.

So be safe, everyone. Follow the CDC health guidelines, and get a good laugh out of these amazing hand-washing music videos from around the world. And in these strange times, whatever the form, hold on to goodness and love. I give you one of my favorite fantasy quotes, taken from The Fellowship of the Ring:

‘The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”