It happened to me when I was in first grade.

I was 6 years old.

Now I’m 8.

It has been two terrible years.

– Lexi LaForge, grade 3

As we all know, in 2020 the coronavirus Covid-19 made its appearance on the world stage. Within weeks, it had profoundly changed the course of human affairs. Millions died. People quarantined inside their homes; travel became severely limited; restaurants, theaters and stores closed their doors. Schools closed, personal communication moved to the internet and people donned masks whenever they left their house. It affected the economic, social and cultural life of people everywhere, whether adult or child. 

Today, the world seems to have come to an uneasy accommodation with this pandemic. While we are still conscious of its virulence, there is a tangible sense of that we might have emerged from the worst. However, even as we appeared to be moving toward some kind of “normal,” the members of the Battell Arts Foundation wondered how our youngest members of the community – those in elementary school – experienced this cataclysmic event. During the worst long months, they could no longer see their friends in person, physically attend school or even freely leave the house. It was a new and scary world, and one that even adults struggled to comprehend and deal with. 

As its mission, the Battell Arts Foundation encourages participation in the arts as a way of engaging and making sense of the world. This past spring, the board conceived the idea of a literary magazine that could capture some of the experiences and emotions young people experienced during these past two years. Now, those reflections have been published in the first volume of the Battell Arts Journal. This first booklet contains contributions from Norfolk and Colebrook students in grades K-3. They speak of isolation, frustration, anger and hope as they live through, and out of, the Covid years. 

Masterfully formatted by Battell Arts Foundation board member Hilary Van Wright, with a cover graphic from the Colebrook kindergarten class, the booklet has been distributed to both Botelle Elementary School and Colebrook Consolidated School, and copies are available free to the community at the Norfolk Library and the Hub. The foundation is hoping the success of this first venture will spawn further volumes, perhaps with various themes and contributions from older students. As board chair Linda Bell says, “We hope that seeing their friends in print may spur some other young people to commit pen to paper and submit their own writing in the future.” 

For more information about the Journal, or the Battell Arts Foundation, contact Tom Hodgkin, Hodgkin.tom@gmail.com.