Murphy Keeps His Distance


Children - Concept
42 Pages
Reviewed on 12/14/2020
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    Book Review

Reviewed by Emily-Jane Hills Orford for Readers' Favorite

The Covid-19 pandemic has made life difficult for a lot of people. Children especially find it difficult to understand. They still want to play at the playground and visit with their friends. Murphy really wants to play with his best friend, Daisy. He’s sad when Mom says, “No.” But then she carefully explains about the virus and why it’s important to keep our distance, even from close friends and family members, and to wash our hands frequently, keep our hands away from our face, and wear a mask when outdoors. Mom has some ideas to help Murphy connect with Daisy and with family and that makes this isolation time a bit of an adventure. Once again, creative minds can solve difficult problems, like forced self isolation.

Sherrel Campbell’s picture book story, Murphy Keeps His Distance, touches on a very difficult concept facing us all right now. With an intuitive question and answer session between Murphy and his mother, the issues facing us all in this pandemic are carefully explained in a way a young reader might understand. The illustrations are simple but colorful and the dialogue and vocabulary make it easy for a young reader to follow along and perhaps read by themselves. The question-answer approach to developing this plot is appropriate considering most young readers are always full of questions and they learn from carefully constructed, not too complicated, answers. This is a great resource to help young readers understand the difficult times we’re going through and how we can all help by doing our part: social distancing, washing hands frequently, and wearing a mask.