‘Inside we stayed for months and days’- the COVID-19 pandemic through the eyes of a child Bringing together the stories of children of the world (Miss Mae Books) The global pandemic brought distress for everyone around the world, yet children were overlooked. Now, a young South African author has published a book, penning the COVID-19 pandemic from a child’s perspective. Laena-Mae Turner hasn’t seen another child or person, except her mother, since February 2020. Turner was just a few days old when she was diagnosed with a life-threatening autoimmune disease hypogammaglobulinemia. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 meant that she was in isolation for more than a year due to her illness. So the eight-year-old wrote a to cheer herself up, and the thousands of other children stuck inside during the lockdown.