Saying ‘NO!’ like you mean it! While Jesse is walking home from school with his good friend Selena, she says that something bad happened last week but she was told that she had to keep it a secret. Now she doesn’t know what to do. She’s afraid that maybe it was her fault and that nobody will believe her anyway. After Jesse says “that sounds like a No Feeling Secret, the kind you don’t have to keep,” Selena decides to confide in him that she was kissed on her lips after soccer practice by an adult friend of her family. “It felt yucky!” Jesse invites Selena to his back yard to get advice from Lady B at her Safety School. After listening, Lady B tells Selena that “It’s not your fault, and you’re allowed to say ‘NO!’ to a No Feeling Body Secret. We can practice until you get good at it, just like practicing soccer.” Along with their background friends, Jesse and Selena learn to scream it like they mean it! In the final part of this series about how to deal with unwanted touch, children learn assertiveness skills when faced with an uncomfortable situation, and to identify and seek help from trusted adults. Because children sometimes don’t want to upset their parents, Lady B encourages Selena to talk to her school counsellor who will know what to do and even help her talk to her parents. It takes a team to learn you don’t have to play ball with people who give you a No Feeling, and that having a safety coach on your side can make all the difference. www.allowedtosayno.com

Safety is a tricky business. In his trusty cardboard plane, Jesse pretends to fly to far-off places just like his neighbour, an airline pilot, who offers compliments, gifts, and a secret outing to a real cockpit, but Jesse grows increasingly uncomfortable with uninvited touch. At Lady B’s Safety School on the first branch of his backyard oak tree, our wise, feisty ladybug reminds Jesse that he is allowed to say ‘NO!’ to a No Feeling, and teaches him how to respond to sneaky gifts, secrets and tricks. To steer a safe path, Jesse must decide how to navigate this journey: will he keep an uncomfortable secret or talk to his parents who always know what to do? In this sequel to Lady B Spots Trouble, we continue the conversation about a child’s right to withhold consent to unwanted touch. As Lady B says: “He has to ask permission to touch you anywhere. It’s your body. You get to decide. It’s called consent. If you don’t say ‘YES’, there is NO consent!” Take off on another adventure with our intrepid duo and learn more about talking to children about unsafe touch.

Lady B Spots Trouble Volume 1 of the Allowed to Say NO! Series A safe way of having a big conversation with young children about unwanted touch. A companion Colouring Book and Kindergarten Teacher’s Guide (downloaded for free from author’s website) facilitates teaching personal safety skills in an easy and age-appropriate manner. Jesse, an adventurous boy of 5, meets Lady B, a feisty karate-chopping but safety-conscious ladybug, on his Wishing Spot – the first branch of his backyard oak tree. Jesse heroically searches for hidden treasure, but sometimes it’s dangerous, and his instincts tell him something is unsafe; the same feeling he gets when his neighbour hugs him too tight. Jesse and Lady B navigate these adventures, not just with lifejackets and seatbelts, but with the secret power of instinct. Safety is a Tricky Business! Who to talk to in these worrying moments? Jesse sits on Granny’s red kitchen stool and listens when she says, “Feelings are like the wind. They blow and howl and shake everything and later it’s all quiet like they were never there. But sometimes they just don’t go away.” Granny tells Jesse, “If you get a No Feeling, you’re allowed to say ‘NO!’ and ask adults you trust for Help!”

A little time has passed. The epidemic cholera has begun to recede. There is a return of stability in England and on the Continent. Not all the marriages that were recently made are entirely happy. Josh Ferraby has returned from Madras and turns his attention to the wildlife of his native land. A provincial lady comes to Town.

When 20 yr old Eva learns her employer Ms. Bernadette of Ferncliff Estate is not going to pass away on her deathbed, Eva becomes drawn into an undiscovered part of her mistress's past life. Hearing a cry for help coming from the woods on the estate one day, Eva and Ms. Bernadette tumble into another realm called Demistrath, a familiar place and people to Bernadette, but totally new to Eva, who comes along to assist her 70 year old boss. Eva tries to make sense of this new realm and how Ms. Bernadette was connected to it in the past, but soon learns it is Eva herself who is the person of interest to the druids, dwarves, elves, fairies and witches that inhabit Demistrath. Traveling between realms, dimensions, continents and worlds, Eva is drawn into a destiny she must embrace or return to her ordinary life in Virginia.