What are Rocky Books?
Rocky Books are trauma support storybooks for children. According to SAMHSA, 66% of children reported at least 1 traumatic event by age 16.
Experiencing trauma can affect a child’s development and have a long lasting impact on their mental health, even as they grow into adulthood.
Our books focus on children’s experiences, emotions and narratives. We employ trauma informed practice across our work. #CentreTheChildren is at the forefront of our mission, always.
Rocky Books are created by an experienced trauma informed family therapist Sheena Vassiliades and award-winning manager for social impact and content specialist Nida Sheriff. Meet us here!
Testimonials
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![Illustration of a child with pigtails meditating.]()
“I would definitely suggest these books. There are families who are going through a tough time and they are looking for content like this. And this is going to be so useful.”
- A mother who read “Tanu Learns How To Overcome Her Fears” with her child
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![Illustration of a family with a father, mother, and daughter sitting together in a garden with plants around them, enjoying a sunny day.]()
“I love that it had a cultural flavour to it. I loved it…. the artwork is so beautiful. It's so happy and positive and sunny. Yes. Just one of those mornings at home, you know, where I sit with her and yeah, the sun is coming in. It's beautiful. It feels quite personal, actually, because we have quiet times at home where she is just reading and I'm just sitting beside her. The fact that she's got a little book in the image is nice as well.”
- A mother on “Tanu Learns How To Overcome Her Fears”
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![Illustration of a child in pajamas playing soccer with a paper ball indoors with an adult. Background is soft green and yellow tones.]()
“I think it's important to just have something that's personalised to you…. something that makes you happy, and it takes away all the anger or sadness or any negative emotions you have within you.”
- A 15 year old on the football-related grounding exercise in ‘Ali Learns How To Feel Safe’
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![Cartoon of two boys playing soccer, one kicking a ball towards a net on a sunny day.]()
“When I was growing up, there wasn't even really much talk of domestic abuse or domestic violence, it was very, “it's a home thing…. I keep it at home”. And then as I've grown up, it's become a really huge thing. So for that, to be portrayed in a way that's easily accessible for young children. I think it's really great. And it's highlighting the natures of different types of abuse, you know, it's not just that traditional for, like, as for saying that it's male to female. So I really liked that book because it was very descriptive. It made me feel understood even as an adult.”
- A mum on ‘Ali Learns How To Feel Safe’
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![Illustration of a child with curly hair and a yellow headband, wearing a teal shirt, surrounded by stacks of purple books, reading one attentively. A backpack and a basketball are in the background.]()
"As part of our prevention program, we conduct sessions with children in the school and vulnerable communities, stories are a great way to engage children, we can use these stories while conducting sessions and get them to do some activities so they can help themselves or someone else found in a similar situation. We also provide counselling and legal support to women and families affected by domestic violence, many times couples (specially perpetrators) do not realize how it is harming the children and cycle of abuse is passing to the next generation. We can use these story books as homework to such couples during counselling sessions to educate them about the harm of DV and how they can work on it."
- Dr Farzana Khan, Head of Programs MyChoices
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![Illustration of a child with glasses and dark hair, wearing a yellow shirt and blue shorts, sitting cross-legged in a meditative pose with eyes closed, holding a glowing orb in their hands on a pastel background.]()
"The magic of Rocky Books lies in its simplicity and impact. I love Rocky Books for its relatable storytelling, impactful content, coupled with actionable coping techniques. It's an easy-to-read gem that one can seamlessly incorporate into their programs for young children in schools and vulnerable communities."
- Archana Brian, Former Head of Operations MyChoices
What’s Special About Rocky Books?
Every Rocky Book contains a hands-on intervention exercise developed by our experienced family therapist and co-founder Sheena.
These exercises are tailored to the needs of the child featured in each story. For example, in Book 1, Rahul experiences a bad feeling in his tummy (anxiety) and worries when his daddy gets angry and shouts. We follow up these emotions with the Tummy Rub exercise, designed to ground and calm the child through mindfulness. This helps the child develop the skills to identify this feeling of anxiety and use the calming exercise when they struggle to cope with this emotion in the future.
The Tummy Rub exercise, like all our exercises, can be done together as a family too. Anyone can use our exercises, no matter your age!
Rocky Books include fully illustrated pages for calming exercises, breathing exercises, mindfulness and emotional mapping activities, coping mechanisms, and grounding exercises for children. Read more about what’s in our books here.
Benefits of Rocky Books
I need support with…
How to use Rocky Books
Are You A Parent or Guardian?
We’re here for you.
It can be difficult to know how to help your child through a stressful or traumatic situation, especially if you do not have easy access to resources like counselling. You may not fully understand why your child is having a difficult time, or know how to help them. As parents, we all want to do what is best for our children.
We understand what you’re going through.
Our experienced team has worked with many families just like yours.
Well done for taking the first step to helping your child - we know it isn’t easy. Helping families heal together is an important pillar of our movement.
Check out our User Guides for support and guidance on how to use Rocky Books on your journey. Download User Guides with our books in PDF form on our Books section.
Languages available: English, French, Hindi, Arabic, Urdu, Turkish, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada.
Are You A Mental Health Professional?
The team at Rocky Books know first hand how being a professional in the mental health field comes with its own variety of challenges. It can be hard to determine what resources are best suited for specific interventions, while often not having access to diverse material targeting younger age groups and families.
The Rocky Books series provide a launch pad for mental health professionals, allowing access to a variety of trauma informed illustrated story books that can be used to support mental health interventions focusing on ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences). The books with exercises and user manuals can be used as tools to facilitate group therapy sessions or 1-1 interventions with children and adults.
Check out our User Guide for prompts on how to introduce and incorporate Rocky Books within your work in the field. Download our books in PDF form on our Books section in several languages.
Are You A School Or Charity That Works With Children?
There are several ways that you can use Rocky Books! You could share our books as a resource on your website, use them as a training tool for your staff, or print and directly distribute them to families.
You can also commission us to make books for you, tailored to the specific needs of your stakeholders. For example, in 2023 we created 2 Trauma Support Booklets tailored to the needs of children affected by the earthquakes in Syria and Turkiye, translated into Arabic and Turkish, for 3 different age groups.
Read more about how you can work with us on our Work With Us page.
Our mental health storybooks to help children cope with trauma
Now available!
Some books are also available in French, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Urdu, Kannada, Arabic and Turkish
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F.A.Qs
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We have PDF and ebook versions of all books available for download and print. This way therapists, counsellors, charities, teachers, parents, social workers and community leaders will be able to share Rocky Books with the children in their lives.
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Our books do not generally fit into rigid age categories. Our User Guides, which are available for download along with the corresponding books, will share tips for reading the books with children of different age groups. We want to encourage parents, teachers, and older siblings to sit with the children in their lives and read Rocky Books together - like they would with any story book! We also believe that the tools in Rocky Books can be used by adults too. You’re never too old to learn how to cope with difficult situations.
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Our books are available in several different languages including English, Hindi, French, Arabic, Turkish, Urdu, Kannada, Tamil, Slovenian, Telugu and more to come. Please refer to our Books page to see what languages are available.
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Nope. We are starting with stories centering Indian families for now because we happen to be Indian. Due to social, economic and cultural factors, many Indian families do not have easy access to mental health resources or conversations about difficult topics like domestic violence. Our Earthquake Trauma Support Booklets were created for children in Syria and Turkiye.
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All our books will be available for download and print. This means that NGOs, charities, schools, doctors offices, community centres will be able to download, print, and share Rocky Books!
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Rocky is our doggy mascot who wants to teach kids that even though things may be “rocky” at home they’re not alone! “Rocky” is also easy to say in any language :).
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Nope! Domestic Abuse and its effects are what we are focusing on now as that is the need of the hour due to the global pandemic. We want to tackle many issues that children face that are detrimental to their short term and long term mental health. In fact, Nida initially had the idea for Rocky Books as a response to the international refugee crisis! We can use the Rocky Books model for children affected by displacement, war, natural disaster, bullying, trafficking, substance misuse, and more.