AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
It's been almost three years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The children of Ukraine may not be on the front lines, but the war is affecting the way they see their world, learn, read44 and play. NPR's Hanna Palamarenko reports from Kyiv on how the war has shaped children's lives.
ALINA OTZEMKO: (Non-English language spoken).
YURCHYK OTZEMKO: (Non-English language spoken).
HANNA PALAMARENKO, BYLINE: Alina Otzemko, who is 29, is in a living room with her 4-year-old son, Yurchyk. He is a lively, smiling boy with big brown eyes sitting on his mother's lap. They flip through a book.
YURCHYK: (Non-English language spoken).
PALAMARENKO: This is not a book of fairy tales. Its title says, "Why Isn't Dad At Home?" Otzemko is training to become a psychologist, but she wrote this book for Yurchyk and about Yurchyk. The book's chapters are about his real-life questions, which Otzemko answers in the simplest possible language.
OTZEMKO: (Non-English language spoken).
PALAMARENKO: "What is war? Who attacked us? Why did they attack? Who's defending us? What is army? Why does Dad not live at home?" - are some of the questions. Otzemko has already sold 1,000 copies. This is just one of many new children's books about war published since Russia's full-scale invasion.
MYKHAILO KARPAN: (Non-English language spoken).
PALAMARENKO: This is Patron The Dog, a popular character in children's comics, voiced by actor Mykhailo Karpan for a cartoon.
KARPAN: (Non-English language spoken).
PALAMARENKO: "Patron is a dog who works in the rescue service, and his main job is sniffing out bombs. He teaches children how to behave in mined areas and how to handle explosive objects," Karpan explains. In the cartoon, Patron fights the villains called booms, who are a simplified representation of explosions.
SASHA RUBAN: (Non-English language spoken).
PALAMARENKO: The cartoon's screenwriter, Sasha Ruban, says you have to tell children about very, very scary things that cause really big damage and death without traumatizing them. Patron The Dog lives not only on the screen and in books but on the shelves of toy stores.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
PALAMARENKO: This is one of Kyiv's biggest toy stores. There are long aisles with colorful doll boxes and cute, fluffy stuffed animals right next to toy tanks, toy drones, and models of cars used by the Ukrainian military on the front line. Victoria Kucheruk, a shop assistant says that demand for military-themed toys has dropped compared with the beginning of the full-scale invasion.
VICTORIA KUCHERUK: (Non-English language spoken).
PALAMARENKO: She says parents are now doing their best to distract their children from the reality of war. However, many kids ask for military-themed toys. In their letters to St. Nicholas, as Santa is known here, she says the wish lists include tanks on remote control and models of military cars. But even children who don't have such toys play games that reflect the war. Parents and teachers from different parts of the country, talk about children playing air raid, a version of hide and seek, or building make-believe checkpoints.
Grandmother Larysa is from the eastern Donetsk region, which has been hardest hit by fighting. She evacuated to Dnipro with her relatives, including her 6-year-old grandson, Artem. They asked us not to use their last name for security reasons. Part of the family still lives in Russian-occupied territory.
LARYSA: (Non-English language spoken).
PALAMARENKO: "Playing with our grandson has changed a lot during the war," Larysa says, "as Artem and his playmates are constantly making up games based on missile attacks."
LARYSA: (Non-English language spoken).
PALAMARENKO: "Either the house collapses in the game, or he built something with block, and then there is a missile attack, and we have to rescue children from the rubble. And recently," Larysa says, "he invented a new game, to hide from a nuclear attack." Otzemko, as a psychologist, says playing games that reference the war is quite normal for children.
OTZEMKO: (Non-English language spoken).
PALAMARENKO: Children can't reflect on their experience the way adults can because of their age. Instead, children live by role-playing and games.
YURCHYK: (Imitating explosion).
PALAMARENKO: While we talk, Yurchyk plays with a toy drone and a couple of tanks. Otzemko is preparing to write another book about the hardest reality of war. On June 7, her husband, and Yurchyk's father, was killed at the front. The title of her new book is "Why Did Dad Die?" This is a question that many children will keep asking as the war in Ukraine continues. Hanna Palamarenko, NPR News, Kyiv. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.