With This Note

With This Note is a sweet and gentle book about body safety and consent. Told with a lovely four line rhyme scheme and beautiful illustrations, this book is direct without being overly specific. I loved this style and intentional decision from the author who is a parent and school counselor.

I think every family should give this book a read. It is lovely and will open up lots of important conversations while still being gentle and calm, which is what these conversations should feel like with our children. We know that safety conversations work best when they are frequent, ongoing, and low stress. This book lends itself perfectly to that style of conversation. It talks about consent, body signals, options in an unsafe situation, and ways to get help. There is no use of the words "should," "must," or "have to."

I work in child abuse prevention, so I work with children daily and I read a lot of books on this topic. This is by far one of my favorites because of it's balance of honesty and gentleness, allowing each family to talk about the topics in the way that matches their culture and values. Consent and body safety should be a topic that we can all get on board with, regardless of other beliefs and values. This book reflects that. Get this for yourself or gift to to someone, better yet maybe do both!

A great introduction to the idea of consent and trusting your instincts. Love the idea of empower our children and teaching them to trust their feelings and their bodies.

Some really great pointers for parents in the background as well!

A must keep and a must read aloud for all the counsellors, teachers, parents and caregivers. This is the need of the moment. It’s never too early or never too late to teach a child to ask for help from a trusted adult and shout for help whenever they do not feel comfortable considering both their minds and body. The words are so powerful and specifically chosen which will help us adults on how to communicate with the kids on how to educate about likely abuse/inappropriate behaviour from known and unknown people.

I repeat this book is a must read.

Thank you, Little Start Books, for the precious advance reading copy.

ARC reader for NetGalley

A great way to teach your little about body autonomy and how to trust their gut feelings when they feel something is wrong. This book will help you convey the message in a way your little can understand through a lyrical, rhyming narrative and pictures. A great must read and parenting tool.

This book kids teaching on what to do if they feel uncomfortable in interactions, especially with people outside of their home. They can always come to trusted adults, even if something seems silly or weird. It is a great conversational tool to use with kids to prevent abuse.

I cannot give it higher stars because the book has several pages that are black and white. I am not sure if this is an issue with the digital copy or an intentional choice. Either way, it was quite jarring to read and it happened several times. I would be glad to raise my review if this was just a digital copy error.

Edit: I was informed that the black and white pages will be full color when published. So I am happy to raise my review from 3 to 4 stars!

Children should not be forced to endure well meant or predatory contact if they do not wish to be touched. In order to feel confident in deciding this for themselves, children need to be encouraged to differentiate between the emotions they feel in this regard.

They must also feel that they have the agency to make such decisions for themselves. This is a user friendly and very useful little book to help children understand their own bodies better and learn how to keep themselves safe.

The illustrations are nicely done, and the tone of the book is warm and encouraging. I particularly liked the reference to a body "alarm" and the importance of paying it heed. This is a good resource for adults to address this entire set of interrelated issues with children.

I liked the message of this book. It is counterculture to say to children, trust your gut, and it is okay to walk away/not always have to be polite. I also like the mixed-racial family as a visual. It is a book I plan on purchasing and using in the classroom (K-2) and with my children.

The only thing I would change is the title. 'With This Note' is confusing as it doesn't explain what this book is about. I'd suggest a title that is more descriptive of the story's point.

Love this book for school counselors, teachers and parents to use with their children. A great children’s book about parenting.

This is a good book for kids to discuss and learn the boundaries of consent. It also would give the message of I will be there for you to teens from the important person in their life.

Our child are not always the child. They grow up, the explore and they learn something about life. Parents should noted this and tell them to always remember when they are going out. Always find and adult to guide them especially parents when they are feel uncomfortable or confuse what they are feel.

A must read book to keep in your bookshelve. A good book to make a reference and read aloud with your kids.

While you shine, my strong child,
And show the world your light,
Remember to stay safe
If it doesn’t feel quite right

This is an amazing work on personal safety of a girl child, which meant a lot for herself and her parents at most. While raising a girl it is very important to keep her safe all the time and make her aware on the behaviour of any person towards her. She need to be told about the right touch and bad touch. She need to make understand that she can talk on any and every such issue to her parents, caregivers, educators, counselors and trusted adults everywhere, to report the mis-happening with her, be it in deportment or conversation.

Every unsafe and uncomfortable situations with trusted persons or strangers should be taken care-off and handled with utmost urgency without failure.

As a school counsellor herself author Annalice made sure she do not just speculate but with factual theory put forth the social behaviour, which need for girls to observe and react accordingly from their very young age.

In many unreported cases, via survey, this came out as a result that most of the sexual harassment (81%) of the females, irrespective of age, happen in extended or immediate circle of a victim by a known perpetrator; as mention in words in this self-help guide-book :-

If you feel uncomfortable,
Or things don’t feel quite right,
There is no need for manners—
You don’t have to be polite!

In addition, I believe and recommend that this book and every such book with progressive details on the subject must be added to the school curriculum from KG to middle-grade. Not only girls to be made aware but even male children also need to be teach for how to behave towards their female counter-parts, as our main concern/motive is to bring out better society through right learning of each human since very young age.

Overall, this is a very good behavioural book on the safety of a girl.

This was a gentle book to teach kids to listen to their gut and keep themselves safe as they begin to venture out into the world on their own. It provides lots of loving support and advice as well as reassurance. There is nothing that would scare children that I can see, so I think parents can pick up this book with confidence. It’s a nice way to start a conversation and let your kids know you are a safe person to bring any questions or concerns. I think With This Note is a helpful resource for caring parents anywhere. The pictures were pretty and clear for young children to understand. They had lots of texture.
Thank you for the eARC, I enjoyed it very much.

This is an excellent book to read to children to help them understand what it means to stay safe in a world which isn’t always good. Without scaring the child, a parent can use this book to communicate how much they love their child and want to protect them from harm. I especially like the part which assures the child they can tell their parents anything and not lose parental love and protection.