PICTURE BOOK CONTINUES TO COMFORT CHILDREN TWO YEARS AFTER
EARTHQUAKES
Two years ago,
children’s author Diana Noonan, illustrator Gavin Bishop and Scholastic New
Zealand launched a very special picture book, Quaky Cat, which was created in record time in response to the
September 2010 earthquakes in Canterbury. At the time, Scholastic gifted 15,500
copies of the book to Christchurch school children.
To date, this
remarkable book has raised over $156,000 for Christchurch charities Women’s
Refuge, Te Tai Tamariki Children’s Literature Charitable Trust and the
Christchurch Earthquake Mayoral Appeal. In July 2012 Scholastic launched it as an App for the
iPad, available via iTunes, with proceeds continuing to be donated to
charities. For the month of February Scholastic will be offering the App at
half its regular price.
With the approach
of the second anniversary of the February earthquake, Scholastic’s Upper South
Island Territory Manager Lynne Andrews has visited St Paul’s School, previously
in Dallington, Christchurch, which received copies of Quaky Cat delivered by Gavin Bishop and Scholastic staff on the day
of its launch, to find how the school and its students have fared.
In December 2010,
the students of St Paul’s School were being taught in the hall at Cathedral
College. By February 2011, the school had moved into an old technology block at
the College, proud of their freshly painted classrooms and grateful to be
there. After the 22 February earthquake, the school had to relocate again, this
time to a disused Ministry of Education property in St Albans, where they
remain today.
Their premises in
Dallington were red stickered and it was announced last October that the school
is proposed to merge with Our Lady of Fatima, which will be the fourth relocation
of the school since the earthquakes.
“I take my hat off
to these teachers!” says Lynne Andrews. “Students who still attend St Paul’s
School are being bussed in from their original suburb of Dallington. The
upheaval and turmoil must be immense.”
On the day of the
launch of Quaky Cat, a small boy
earnestly chose his best pen to write his name on the bookplate of his copy of
the book. He and his family have now moved to Dunedin. In the summer of
2010/11, Deputy Principal Damian Young visited school families and was
invariably asked to read a story to the children, and much-thumbed copies of Quaky Cat were frequently the book of
choice.
This week, speaking
to Lynne Andrews, memories of being given Quaky
Cat came flooding back to three of the students who are still at St Paul’s
School. Sophia remembers ‘the tall man who painted it [telling us] how we all
had the brush at home and could do it too – it was a toothbrush!’, while Learna
says that ‘you could feel the rumble and the bricks fall on the journey.’ The
students shared stories of rabbits and cats going missing, drawing parallels
between Quaky Cat’s Tiger, the cat
who went missing after the earthquakes, and their own pets. When asked if they
still have their copies of the book, the answer was a deafening ‘yes!’, and
they are still reading it now. ‘It reminds me of the earthquake,’ says Jade.
The impact of Quaky Cat surpasses the expectations of
any of its creators. Far more than a fundraiser, it has provided comfort to
children and families who experienced the earthquakes. The book helped them
‘get used to the earthquakes and not to be scared … [it] helps loads of little
kids and makes them believe and be safe no matter what,’ says Sophia. ‘It
helped me every day.’
‘Whenever I was
sad, I picked up Quaky Cat and asked
for it to be read to me,’ says Jade. ‘Same,’ adds Learna.
At the time of the
book’s launch, no one imagined what was to hit Christchurch on 22 February
2011, but all those involved were thankful that Quaky Cat was there to give comfort to children when the next
disaster struck.
For further
information, please contact
South Island
Territory Manager Lynne Andrews, landrews@scholastic.co.nz
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