6 wonderful books to help children communicate there feelings and problems
#BlogTour #TheGinormousSeries @sccunningham8 @ginormousjoe @rararesources
"6 Books 1 Blog Tour!"
About The Ginormous Series
Through The Ginormous Series children learn how to communicate their problems and work through their feelings.
Loving, engaging adventures that follow pets discussing their 'life handling' problems and how they solve them together.
In ‘Ginormous Jo’s Silly Bullies’, ‘Ginormous Jo’s Welcoming Arms’, ‘Ginormous Jo’s You Are Special’, ‘Ginormous Joe’s Broken Bark’ and ‘Ginormous Joe’s Annoying Friend’ the animals chat about lots of ‘stuff’.
Bullying, recycling, welcoming new members to a family or classroom, feeling alone, listening, learning and caring for others.
A great addition to any child’s home or teacher’s read-aloud library. Encouraging thought-provoking conversation between adult and child.
Ginormous Joe’s Broken Bark
by S C Cunningham
Illustrations by Scarlett Raven & S C Cunningham
Can a dog be saved by the love of a family?
Can he find his bark to save them from the local thief?
Meet Joe. He’s got the worst owner that dumps him by the road where he is found by the Tuttle family. They take him in, even though he has no bark at all.
But he is a very large dog which should help protect the family from the recent break-ins around the neighborhood.
But Joe loves to sleep. He stretches out and snores loud, barking while he dreams of chasing rabbits.
He just can’t bark while he is awake, Will he save the family when a burglar enters the house? Will Joe find his bark to warn them in time?
This delightful story is the first of a series of stories featuring Ginormous Joe. It shows how he becomes part of the Tuttle family.
It’s a great read-aloud for families that have recently got a dog and teaches a lesson on how everyone has a purpose.
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Ginormous Joe’s Annoying Friend
Written & Illustrated
by S C Cunningham
Do you have a child that has trouble talking to people? Or expressing their feelings?
Here is a story about dogs with the problem of communicating their feelings, and how they solve it together.
The Tuttles enjoy walking their dog, Ginormous Joe. But one day, they bring home a new friend, another dog named Mo. Joe and Mo don’t seem to hit it off. She is always ignoring him and not wanting to play.
One day, Joe realizes that all he needed to do was reach out and talk.
This gave Mo a chance to tell him why she never would play with him. She was shy.
The awkwardness between them evaporates, and they become friends, all from finally being brave enough to tell each other their feelings.
This is a great book to show children how to communicate to solve their problems and work through their feelings.
It will make a great addition to any child’s home collection or teacher’s read-aloud library.
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Ginormous Jo’s Secret
Written & Illustrated
by S C Cunningham
In “Ginormous Jo’s Secret,” S C Cunningham explains the very link between listening and learning.
Though the huge, white, huggable dog called Jo wasn’t sure at first when her mum brought home a cuddly little kitten called Vinnie, she grew to love him with time.
Vinnie was loving, playful and made her laugh a lot.
Because Jo didn’t want Vinnie behaving like their noisy, shouty, and greedy neighbours, she introduces him to “Liswat,” telling him the great importance of listening and learning from others and the very secret behind her being a clever dog.
Does Vinnie now know the meaning of “Liswat?”
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Ginormous Jo’s Silly Bullies
Written & Illustrated
by S C Cunningham
Looking for a way to help children face bullies?
Have them follow along on the adventures of Ginormous Jo and her dog friends as they learn to face bullies in her dog neighborhood.
When Ginormous Jo visits one of her friends Muttley, she notices Muttley is very down.
She doesn’t seem to want to do their normal play activities. Jo is worried, and finally gets Muttley to bravely tell her why she won’t go outside.
The dogs down the street are bullying Muttley.
Will Muttley stand up to them? Or will it take some help from her friend Jo first?
This is a great read-aloud for the whole family or for a class working on beginning of the school year skills.
Children will learn the techniques on how to stand up to a bully.
This is the fourth book in the Ginormous Jo collection.
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Ginormous Joe’s Welcoming Arms
Written & Illustrated
by S C Cunningham
Have siblings or school friends been having trouble getting along? Or is there a new member or pet in the family?
Join loveable dogs, Ginormous Jo and little Tom, as a new member of the family is adopted, a ginger kitten.
Vinnie is a very mischievous and curious kitten. He gets into everything. Tom, is annoyed and unhappy with the new addition.
Vinnie follows him around, making all sorts of big messes. What are they going to do with this new kitten? Faced with having to take charge of Vinnie, the dogs start to help and manage his adventures. Watching out for him, they learn to accept that family means to look after each other and being older comes with responsibility.
This is a great picture book for helping children understand additions to the classroom or family, whether they are pets or a new baby.
Children will learn how to be responsible for the new member and that looking out for someone else is not only kind, but a new sort of responsibility, that can be fun.
This will make a great addition to any parenting library or in the classroom.
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Ginormous Jo’s You Are Special
Written & Illustrated
by S C Cunningham
Ever wish you could ask someone the big life questions?
Tom and Vincent have a full list for their friend, Ginormous Jo. Being in a unique family of three dogs and a kitten, they are all the best of friends.
Tom, a little white dog and Vincent, a small kitten, play quietly in the backyard until they start asking questions about life. Are they special? Why do they feel they don’t fit in?
They come up with a list to ask Ginormous Jo, the friendly senior dog in the house.
She takes the two to heart and listens to their questions. The answers might be astonishing to the pair, but they are an excellent example of how you can learn from those wiser than yourself.
But the important thing, of course, is they asked for help from an elder.
She teaches them how they are already special. And that through recycling, they can help save the whole world!
This darling little picture book continues the Ginormous Jo serious stressing the importance of asking questions and being honest with your elders.
It helps model how children should feel free to express their feelings to loved ones older than them, and follow the advice.
It stresses how anyone can be special by their personal effort to better the world. This is a great book for any children’s library especially as a gift from a grandparent or older sibling.
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My Review
Well this was a really great series that we all enjoyed in our household.
Even more fun that the author had specially turned this series in to a kind of visual audio book via you tube!
We were able to chill out as a family and listen to a tale on an evening and what made it even better is that these tales start conversations in children especially my 3, not only about there own feelings but about how they would react in that situation if it was not animal but a fellow child or adult,
I liked having this platform to enable me in having some of this tough discussions. I feel like these books should be available in every home and school to come back to again and again, especially for young children due to important messages they give.
I thought the books were lovely the pictures to, the boys took a while to get used to the more blurry whimsical take on the illustrations, to me it meant that while the characters were suggested as read aloud or audio books you create your own idea of what the characters look like in your mind.
what follow are some mini reviews of each story...
· Ginormous Joe’s Broken Bark
Ginormous Joe is a big dog! and my lad loved him wow did it start the begging again for us to get out own pooch!!
he was relate able to having worries and big a bit clumsy he struck a cord with my eldest who has Dyspraxia and who also suffers from worries at times.
We all felt bad for Joe but were thrilled he found his family and they loved him no matter what I liked the message of finding acceptance and being who you are no matter what!
· Ginormous Joe’s Annoying Friend
Double the fun in the tale with 2 dogs, we were happy to hear more from Joe and this time it was more told from his point of view, and it was a great message of friendship and overcoming shyness, this stated a lovey chat with our middle mini twist who has problems with shyness himself!
· Ginormous Jo’s Secret
In this 3rd book we were happy to meet more characters, and my boys have taken "LISWAT" in to there heart and vocabulary! goodness knows when they go back to school after these holidays what others with think as they will be shouting liswat from the rooftops if someone does not know how to do something or is rude! It's cause some giggles in this household!
We liked Jo and Vinnie's friendship and how Jo also teaches Vinnie liswat which is to listen and watch and about good behaviour a very important lesson for all.
· Ginormous Jo’s Silly Bullies
There is no way that any adult or child can not relate to this tale, the fear of bullying is rife in school aged children and something i suffered as a child and that I constantly worry about for my Boys
Its was great that this story showed not just Muttley standing up to bullies but him having the courage to talk about what was bothering him as well as his friends been very aware that someting was not alright with Muttley and giving him the opertunity to speak to them
we liked this story ad its strong message.
· Ginormous Joe’s Welcoming Arms
We really like this 5th story in the series, the boys liked the returning characters and its was a tale with a fantastic message of acceptance and family.
As well as a simple theme that we try and teach our elder children as well, that growing up comes with more responsibility and helping others too
· Ginormous Jo’s You Are Special
A lovely story to round off our journey through this series, I really liked the message of that if you have any worries or questions that you can seek out an elder be that a senior doggy like Joe in this story or as suggested in our discussion mum, dad or grandparents and even teachers!
I liked where this story lead us and the conversations we had following with my boys, it actually left me feeling really good that my boys seemed confident in what they would do in this situation.
As a Final round up, we all really enjoyed each story and my youngest has been watching the you tube books again and again! I feel for him this is a series we will be coming back too!
For me I thought the author showed so much understanding of the topics and how it would relate to children and how best to write these to prompt and encourage further conversations.
Author Bio
Owned by 3 dogs and a cat, Cunningham normally writes suspense thrillers.
As respite from her crime novels, she creates children’s picture books, each with a theme to gently teach our precious young, and help open up conversation.
The Ginormous Series is based on Cunningham’s beloved family pets – Joe, Muttley, Dali (Jo), Tom and Vinnie.
She is an ex-model, British born of Irish roots that married a rock musician and has worked in the exciting worlds of music, film, sports celebrity management and as a Crime Investigator and Intelligence Analyst for the Police.
She supports causes for: Veterans, MH, Child and Animal Protection.
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Giveaway
Giveaway to win a choice of 1 paperback from the first 6 books of the Ginormous Jo Series
(Open Internationally)
Winner can pick from
· Ginormous Joe’s Broken Bark
· Ginormous Joe’s Annoying Friend
· Ginormous Jo’s Secret
· Ginormous Jo’s Silly Bullies
· Ginormous Joe’s Welcoming Arms
· Ginormous Jo’s You Are Special
*Terms and Conditions –Worldwide entries welcome. Please enter using the Rafflecopter box below. The winner will be selected at random via Rafflecopter from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then Rachel’s Random Resources reserves the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over. Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time Rachel’s Random Resources will delete the data. I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.
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Thank you to the Publisher and Author for sending me an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this novel and for the opportunity to review these works.
All reviews are my own unbiased opinion.