‘Your guts will form a stinky pool’: Roald Dahl explains Covid-19 to children

In Competition No. 3153 you were invited to recruit a well-known children’s writer to explain Covid-19 to their young audience.

Designer Jim Malloy’s reimagining of Dr Seuss titles for the coronavirus age — Oh, the Places You Won’t Go!; Docs in Smocks — gave me the idea for this challenge and though I had high hopes for Seuss-inspired submissions none quite hit the mark.

Of the many entries featuring Richmal Crompton’s William Brown, Adrian Fry’s was my favourite: ‘William wasn’t exactly sure what a moonity was, but gathered it had something to do with freedom, of which he naturally approved…’. I also admired Eric Carle’s The Very Angry Virus, courtesy of David Silverman: ‘On Thursday he infects Cheltenham Racecourse, 400,000 joggers and half of Europe. On Friday he infects half of America. On Saturday he infects one Secretary of State for Health, one Chief Medical Officer, one Prime Minister, one Prime Minister’s adviser, one Durham petrol-station assistant, and half of Brazil…’ And an appreciative high-five goes to Robert Schechter, channelling Christina Rossetti:

Who has seen the bug?Neither you nor I.But