feeling safe in hurricanes and cheery chickens

As we’re dreading the start of a new scary hurricane season, the thing kids and grownups can take heart from, is kind people working hard to help.

And when you’re scared or feeling sad-mad-bad-or-blue, Chickens to the Rescue! will make you laugh.

Day of Disaster and Doom! How to Feel Safe When It’s Scary is a story for hurricane season in English and in Spanish. A girl who’s always ready for emergencies that never happen winds up using her homemade Save The Day Kit to help her little brother feel safe when they evacuate, and when their home is damaged.

The story’s inspired by the Tampa Bay community’s hard-working kindness after last year’s catastrophic storms – and writer Margo Hammond’s experience of evacuating to an elementary school.

Margo told me how she felt safe and cared for amid the ABCs and tiny desks, drinking chocolate milk at every meal. You’ll see her photos in the story – and photos of city workers and volunteers.

Tampa Parks & Rec welcomed kids for play, art-making and free lunch when storm damage closed schools in this illustration from Day of Disasters and Doom!

Day of Disaster and Doom! is full of heart and humor and a celebration of community – a story of creative kids taking action before, during and after the storm, performed by Vickie Daignault and Jim Sorenson in English, with a wonderful Spanish translation and performance by Dora Arreola.

Because we don’t know what will happen. But we can count on our community, and kind people stepping up to help.

Kirk Ke Wang’s artwork based on hurricane projection maps, “doodles” to calm hurricane anxiety, illustrations in Day of Disasters and Doom!

So many thanks to the City of St Petersburg, the City of Tampa, John Collinson, Creative Clay, Daystar Life Center, The James Museum of Western & Wildlife Art, Kirk Ke Wang for his fabulous paintings inspired by hurricane projection maps, Margo Hammond, Reach St Pete, St Pete Free Clinic, Tampa Parks and Recreation and The Woodson African American Museum of Florida.

But of course we’re all still feeling scared and bad-mad-sad-and blue. So please enjoy Chickens to the Rescue! anytime you need a lift!

Chickens to the Rescue! is equally hilarious as a pure audio podcast

This short fun tale of chickens you can call to cheer you up showcases stage and screen actors Eugenie Bondurant, Vickie Daignault, Fanni Green, Jan Neuberger, Mary Rachel Quinn and Mimi Rice unfurling all their acting skills with director Jim Rayfield’s gentle guidance – creating a fabulous rhyming soundscape of 6 chickens who’ll hop in a firetruck to cheer you up.

With photos of the real Dottie, Pilot, Cocoa, Marshmellow, Phyllis and Gloria, children’s drawings of chickens and firetrucks thanks to poet Sara Ries Dziekonski – and many thanks for the inspiration from visual artist Cynthia Mason, Wayne Sexauer and their jolly brood of hens, who really do have a vintage firetruck and ambulance to ride in.

So please enjoy these cheery chickens anytime you need a laugh.

And as the story says, “Chickens believe in you!”

Thanks so much for sharing Sparks Creative Stories.

Feature image – Chickens believe in you! (Gloria) photo by Cynthia Mason and Wayne Sexauer

Subscribe to Sparks Creative Stories on YouTube – free illustrated audiobooks for kids of all abilities in English, in Spanish and in ASL