COPE Wildfires book

This summer, to coincide with the California Wildfires season, we launched the new COPE picture book.

For the first time, the COPE team visit two different locations to study a natural disaster…

They go to South Africa first, to look at the effects of the large wildfires that happened in Knysna…

…and then move on to California and the Sonoma fires. I was especially pleased and honoured to get the chance to draw a portrait of San Francisco’s Fire Chief, who supported the book.

It’s always hard doing the research for the books, these disasters are getting more common due to increasing climate change, but I hope that they’ll save the lives of children who’ll be more prepared and know what to do in they find themselves in the midst of an emergency situation.

As always, you can read the books for free on the COPE website. Be prepared!

Hong Kong visit

I'm in HK at the moment, for various projects, and just took part in the Symposium for Disaster Risk Reduction at the Hong Kong PolyU.Author Martha Keswick and I gave a presentation as part of the campaign for Disaster Risk preparedness, to launch our new childrens picture book series: 'COPE - How to be Ready for Natural Disasters'.It's a series of books featuring a team of kids who travel the world teaching other kids how to handle various natural disasters. The first book is about Earthquakes. We hope to eventually have books that include what to do in hurricanes, wildfires, floods, tsunamis, blizzards and volcanoes.Because of increasing climate change, natural disasters are becoming more prevalent, and it's so important that children know how to deal with them. We are actively looking for partners to help us publish and fund the series. If you know any NGOs who might be interested, please contact us! We have a temporary website here for more info:

www.COPE-natural-disasters.com

If these books can saves lives, I will feel like I've done something worthwhile. Please help if you can!