What a sweet story about a young puppy trying to understand and cope with what we all know as the pandemic. I think it is so, so important for kids to have a way to understand what is happening in the world around them, and to find ways for them to help put their feelings of isolation into words.

I hope to see more books be published about the fear and anxiety surrounding the past couple of years. We all need the comfort.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC. All opinions are my own.

This book is a very creative and cute way to teach children what a Pandemic is and what the country is going through at this time. It makes the experience less scary and intimidating since they are using dogs in this book and everyone loves dogs!

I loved this book. I loved how the author explained the difficulties of living life in the pandemic age and also outlined some of the hidden gems. It will ease the fears of every child that is struggling with all the changes life has thrown at him/her over the last two years. The graphics were outstanding and I loved the added activity of searching for Stuart throughout the book. Who doesn't love Jake? I think any child would enjoy this book.

This is an excellent resource to get kids talking about their thoughts, feelings, and experiences during the pandemic. It retells the story of how things happened so suddenly in March 2020 and all the changes and uncertainties that went with it. Using kid-friendly language, it acknowledges both the hard parts and the silver linings we found.

Jake the dog is adorable and the illustrations are bright and lively, with lots of fun details for kids to notice. The tone is very validating of all kinds of feelings and reactions, but the overall message is hopeful, both for the future and for the ability of the human spirit to adapt and still find good in the world. This would make an excellent circle-time read at school, but also a great one-one-one read with a caregiver to help kids process and make sense of their experiences.

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review!

Can kids books ever be any cuter than when based on real life animals? I think not.
Jake is a real-live dog and he's a covid pup. So obviously he knows what he's talking about when it comes to the safety of wearing masks, social distancing, and (ultimately) getting the vaccine.
One thing of note here is that the book ends with the vaccine having just been discovered. So this is a bit of an outdated story (if you will). However as far as I'm concerned all the same rules and limitations should apply as we have not yet produced a vaccine that stops infection (merely delays it or reduces it's severity). So I wouldn't at all think that anything else in Jake and the Pandemic has changed very much.
The most exciting part of the book is perhaps the ending in which we learn there is a whole line of books coming out where Jake the dog explains the world to us! So great!
Chris Hardy presents a difficult and scary topic in a really friendly and accessible way. I would definitely recommend this for anyone who has to try and explain to a little one what is happening. Even as we are now outside the 'immediate' pandemic danger of covid-19 I think it's still important to teach kids what can happen and how to be prepared. Inevitably there will be another pandemic. Whether it's a strain of covid-19, a new virus all together, or a strain of the flu; I have certainly about one thing, the environment sees us as a parasite and is going to keep trying to kill us off. That is just the way evolution and biology work; thus we should prepare children to tackle it with open, honest communication, just like Jake does here.

Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review.

We loved this book! What a great way to incorporate current events into digestible messages for young children struggling with the unknowns of the pandemic. The graphics were very well done and searching for Stuart added an interactive component to this book. I loved the positive messaging around universal feelings when faced when uncertainty and the messages of unity and hope. This was a perfect little book for little people and adults alike!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC copy of this book in exchange for my honest review and opinion. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Highly recommend this book!

This book started our great but things took a weird turn in the middle. I liked at the beginning there was a good explanation of how things were before Covid and there was an engaging activity of tracking the squirrel on each page. When the dog went from being a dog and doing dog things and turned into a dog doing people things like online school, mowing the grass, etc, that’s where it got weird to me. There was potential but missed the mark.

I think this book accomplishes exactly what it set out to do. It's meant to help young children and students process their emotions as they recover from the trauma of a life-changing lockdown and learn to live in our "new normal" world. As a teacher, I've worked with many students who are dealing with both educational and emotional delays due to the trauma of COVID-19 and lockdown. While teachers have been excellent in helping to bring students back to where they need to be academically, it's been hard to find good resources for to help students process their emotions and understand the world around them.

The artwork in here was adorable - Jake is definitely a warm and friendly character that children will love. He's exactly the type of character that helps to make a harder topic more approachable and calming for young kids. The language was appropriate and I think many children will be able to relate to the story and use it as a starting point to have discussions with their teachers, therapists, and families about their emotions related to the pandemic.

I do think it could be expanded a bit towards the end - it felt like quite an abrupt ending. Although, I understand it's hard to write about a post-COVID world and a "new normal" when we aren't even living it yet.

Jake and the Pandemic followed the life of Jake the dog throughout the coronavirus lockdown. The rise of post-pandemic children’s literature is something that I find to be a great way of helping younger children understand and come to terms with the confusion and stress of the pandemic.

The illustrations were actually quite funny, especially the dogs and squirrels in masks! I felt it could have had a little more depth to the writing but it is a fun little read.

What a cute book with engaging illustrations to help kids process and talk about the pandemic, with their parents and teachers. I look forward to reading this book with my students and listening to them reflect on their experiences and feelings.

I hope this author writes more children's books about Jake!

I felt like this was a cute and wholesome way to introduce what happened to young kids. However, I wish there was more information. The illustrations were cute and colorful.

As a mother of 3 children who dealt with the pandemic, I thought this book showed a good perspective of what went on during.

I think it was really relatable in regards to how life was during that time. But there was no information past that. The vaccine wasn't/isn't the end of covid and I found it ended rather abruptly.

Jake is a dog representation of the life experienced by some children during a lockdown, based upon events undergone by the author's niece. It includes a few of the activities families embarked on within their homes, like baking and yoga, and the actions taken by people to help others, like delivering shopping.

The key question for this book is 'why is a dog wearing a face mask?' It provides a non-human representation of masking-wearing, which can aid understanding for some young audiences as it creates distance from heavier topics- all thoroughly appropriate for the target age. But, certainly from an adult perspective, a mask on a dog is just perplexing.

The text placement appears ill-considered on most pages, being neither centralised nor artfully formatted to suit the space. For some passages to be readable against the busy imagery, a drop shadow has been added. This will aid some readers whilst doing little to help others.

From page to page, the size of the text changes. This has seemingly been done to fit the available space but suggests a lack of planning for the illustrations or thought of how young readers need the text to look consistent for it to be easier for them to follow.

Osipova's illustrations make for bright pages, using a range of bold, contemporary colours to create eye-catching spreads. Solely as a critique of the art style (rather than the execution of such), the character illustrations feel flat, lacking in contrast required to convey depth. This is seen clearly on Jake's pale fur, especially as a different colouring technique seems to have been used to this and the rest of the imagery. The street scene (p9-10) is a good example of simple but effective children's picture book art.

Particularly on the page with the road (p16), the perspective appears to be off, further adding to the flat feeling of the imagery. Also on this page, as the book aims to portray the reality of the time for some people, the tumbleweed and loose leaves of paper drifting down the road are inaccurate.

Included on most pages is the character of Stuart, Jake's squirrel friend. For many pages this was a nice addition, incorporating a humorous icon into the main imagery. On some pages, it was clear that it was difficult to naturally include Stuart and the use of the image is clearly forced, such as with most indoor scenes featuring a squirrel-patterned item. The continuation of this theme is nice but it stops being 'Can You Spot Stuart?' when it is instead a generic squirrel image, decreasing the enjoyment of the extra activity.

I say this as a teacher- I would never give this book to children in my care. It oversimplifies a complex situation and not in a way that aids their understanding or assists their well-being. This would not be picked up from the class/school library by children themselves as the imagery does not stand up to the high standard of other current works.