Small children struggle to understand how their world has changed since Covid-19 stopped life as we know it but LOGS year one pupil Oleta Sherlock-Chapell has found a solution through the Marvel super heroes.

Oleta has had to cope with the fact that her older brother James, an NHS A&E staff nurse at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, caught the coronavirus, recovered and then has gone straight back to work.

With her world turned upside down and unable to describe her fears for her brother, you might think little Oleta would feel unable to cope. But thanks to a newfound love of reading Marvel comic books, she has found a way to express herself.

Her mum Lisa explains: “Oleta has been worrying a lot about what is going on in the world and especially about her brother James. He is the first point of contact to all emergency patients at Edinburgh’s A&E, he then got the virus himself but after recovering went back to work to help colleagues fight the cause. Oleta knew all this and thinks he is very brave.

“She has always been proud of her brother’s work – when he worked with children with specialized disabilities and geriatric patients and now dealing with the virus.  But this is a lot for a five-year-old to deal with.

“She started learning about the Marvel super heroes and how they always win in the end and then we saw that she was drawing what was happening around us in Marvel cartoon form. She drew a cartoon of her brother as a superhero fighting the virus and sent it to her teacher at LOGS.

“It seems it really helps her when she translates her worries into comic drawings in which the super hero always prevails against evil. Oleta always reads the stories with me, looks at the pictures and then summarizes how good has beaten evil, just like her brother is beating the virus.”

Every Thursday, Oleta rushes outside at 8pm to bang pots and pans for the NHS. Lisa adds: “When it comes to Thursday evening at 8pm, Oleta bangs her pots and pans and when she is finished she always says: ‘That’s for you, James” even though he’s hundreds of miles away.”

Oleta’s head Mrs Whyte said: “Superheroes are a perfect way to capture children’s imagination. They can be used as great role models if emphasis is put not so much on their ability to fight evil and always come out on top but on their kindness and helpfulness, their strength and perseverance. The idea of superpowers is so appealing and can make children braver about trying new things. Pretending to be someone else helps them to empathise and there is then a natural step towards real life superheroes like firefighters, vets or policemen, and of course doctors and nurses.”