“With practically everything closed to encourage social distancing, we’ve all got a lot more time on our hands to enjoy a good book or two or twenty. However, since we’re all limiting our personal interactions — the latest recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control is no gatherings of more than 10 people — it might feel as if you’ve got no one to talk to about that book that you couldn’t put down. The truth is despite being unable to physically meet up to chat about this year’s best books, there are still tons of ways to host your own digital book club. So, here are a few tips on how to take your book club online during the coronavirus pandemic.” Book club can still absolutely go on, ‘rona be damned. “On Tuesday, Scribe and other educators took turns going ‘live’ on their Facebook pages, offering lessons geared toward different grade levels. One of the goals of the online classrooms is to hopefully take children away from their cellphones and Playstations during the school closures, according to Scribe. ‘My passion is to include Indigenous knowledge in everything that we do,’ said Scribe. ‘All of these courses, we are asking people to include as much Indigenous knowledge as possible.’” Spread that indigenous knowledge all over the place, please! “Though coloring books for adults began to circulate more widely widely in the 1960s as objects of satire, they wouldn’t become mainstream until the early 2010s, when people began to view them as therapeutic. Coloring for adults may have a number of positive effects on the mind and the psyche. Namely? Reducing anxiety and staying present. “Coloring definitely has therapeutic potential to reduce anxiety, create focus, or bring [about] more mindfulness,” Marygrace Berberian, a certified art therapist and the Clinical Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator for the Graduate Art Therapy Program at NYU, told CNN.” If adult coloring books were ever going to make another comeback, this would be the time.
