Quarantine, lockdown, and COVID have hit everyone, and coping hasn't always been easy. Whether you were in a big city, small town, or some more rural area, life definitely felt upside down.
For a group of four big city kids, dealing with the isolation and restrictions of being in quarantine threatened to completely derail their lives, but they were creative in ways that kept their friendships alive and their feelings of frustration under control.
Ai is living with 3 family members, but she feels alone. Her father is busy at work, her sister is busy studying, and her mother is shut away in her bedroom. Ai's mom promised if her depression got out of control, she would go see her doctor and take her medicine, but she seems to have forgotten that promise. Now Ai is pretty much fending for herself.
Liam worries about everything. He tries to help his busy mother with his younger twin sisters, but his fears of the pandemic and what is happening in the outside world threaten to overwhelm him.
When the schools close down, Ben is left with no way to escape his parents who fight constantly. He tries to avoid them but being stuck in the apartment with them doesn't give him the separation he craves.
Before COVID Shayla was having friend issues with Ai. She is hoping being stuck in the same building might result in some sort of reconciliation. When Shayla's fashion designer father decides to start making masks to supplement his lost dressmaking jobs, Shayla hopes delivering masks to her friends might help them reconnect.
The four create the Quartet. They approach the lone apartment custodian and ask if they can help out. Soon they are disinfecting elevator doors and buttons, helping collect recycling, and eventually offering all sorts of help to residents of their building. Their eyes are opened to how much work it takes to care for people. They are made even more aware of people's action when protests about the death of George Floyd erupt on the nearby streets.
Author K. Ibura takes readers into life with a worldwide pandemic. Readers are sure to find common ground with the characters in WHEN THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN.
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