Denysenko, a Ukrainian writer, lawyer, and public activist, is e-mailing about her children's book Maya and Her Friends, which will be published in April by Bonnier Books UK and drawn by Ukrainian artist Masha Foya. The entire revenues from the book will be donated to Unicef in support of the children of Ukraine who are being displaced by the ongoing aggression.

“As I write to you, rockets are flying outside my windows, and at a distance of 20km from my house, Russian aggressors are destroying the suburbs of Kyiv,” author Larysa Denysenko says in an email. “Mariupol, home to more than 400,000 people, is left without water, heat and food due to violations of international humanitarian law. One child died of dehydration today.”

The Guardian reported that Maya and Her Friends was written in the aftermath of Russia's 2014 invasion of Crimea and occupation of parts of Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk provinces. During the battle, as families evacuate and split apart, the storey of children and their various home lives has taken on new meaning.

Denysenko has added a new introduction to the forthcoming edition of the book, which will be published on April 12 in Finland, Poland, and Germany. She wrote it while hiding in a corridor with her mother and dog during a missile scare.