The Huge Bag of Worries

I have an 8 year old son who has just started worrying constantly about various things including nuclear bombs, burglars, the sun ending, the world ending and it was getting more and more difficult to reassure him and calm him down especially at bed time. This book has been perfect as it shows that lots of children get worries and that the worries are not real or at least not as bad as they seem. Beautifully illustrated, the story is about a bag of worries that follows the child everywhere and nothing seems to get rid of this bag which is getting bigger until she opens up and talks about her worries. It allowed me to have that conversation with my son and he could see that talking about it was helping him as it did the girl in this book. I would highly recommend this to anyone with anxious children and I think the best age group it would work for would be 6 to 8 year olds.

This was such a great book to go through with my nephews and opened up a variety of conversations which is always handy

My daughter had developed some nervous habits and whenever I asked her whether she was worried about anything, she always said no. My friend recommended this book, and when we worked through it, it worked wonders. The book helps to break down the problems into little managable chunks and work through them individually. For example, when we were working through it, my daughter and I discovered that when I was asking her what was wrong, there were so many little worries built up, she didn't know where to begin, and she felt that one of the little worries on it's own would have sounded ridiculous. However, by pulling them apart and ridding her of each one individually (by talking about them and resolving them) we were able to break the big tower of worries down. Fantastic for working with your child or for practitioner use during one to one.

Lovely breakfast book. Use it in my workshops with primary school children about worries and anxiety. The only reason I have given it 4 stars is because I feel it would have been more appropriate for the little girl to have shared her worries with a parent or her brother, or an adult at school rather than the neighbour. Some children do not have a suitable neighbour that they can talk to, so to make it more relatable the parents, brother or adult at school would have be more appropriate, in my opinion. Overall though, a wonderful informative book with lovely illustrations and an important message

Bought as a Christmas present for my 8 year old niece who is struggling with anxiety/ worries. Did some research online and this came highly recommended. After a quick read through myself, I was quite impressed. I would definitely recommend for any nervous child, and would recommend the parent/carer have a read first, so you can be prepared for any questions, and as a listening ear.

I have used this story over a period of fifteen years. My last copy was worn out. It is a great story, because it gives children and carers a way of coping with anxieties which are difficult to express . It is also light. The pictures are fun and they can be talked about to help lift children's burdens and worries are sorted into those which are real and those which belong to others. The grown up young people who have used this story as children all say how much it helped when they were in difficult situations.

I use this book therapeutically with children and or adults. This is my10th copy as I tend to give them as gifts.I would highly recommend this book the illustrations are brilliant and the message a powerful one of brining your worries into the light.

I purchased this book after my 5 year old was read it in class and thoroughly enjoyed it.She is a little worrier and sometimes struggles with telling us what is on her mind. This book is absolutely excellent. It leads to conversations about anything that is worrying your child, and other ways you can make your worries disappear.After reading some of the negative reviews I was quite worried but it really is a very lovely book, as long as you use it in the right way.

I think it is a great book to help kids to see their worries as something normal and not that threatening as they think they are. I would have liked to see concrete examples at the end of the story, instead of making them disappear as it is done in this story. For example: if the girl said, ˋˋI worry that my mom loses her job'', and then help her to see that ˋˋthat worry belongs to her mom''

This book is an excellent resource for professionals and parents alike! If you have a child or work with a child who has many worries - this entertaining book provides a humorous way of looking at worries, but allows for thoughtful discussion! A great add to any library/resource list!

This book teaches children the importance of sharing their worries to others and thus helping children to manage their emotions (specifically anxiety).

geniale la storia

my six year old daughter is very emotionally sensitive and anxious and tends to worry about hurting other people's feelings a lot and about many things that would never even occur to me to think about. i was kind of at my wits end about how to calm her down and deal with these worries, and when researching it came across this and one other book. She picked it up and was entranced -- really related to the girl in the book, and was very smiley and happy by the end of it. now she sometimes just goes to the bookshelf and gets it down herself to read to herself.