Title: Hello Dark
Author: John Coxhead
Release Date: 26th May 2020
Genre: Picture Book
Page Count: 104
Publisher: Clink Street Publishing

Welcoming and becoming comfortable with the dark is such an important thing for children to learn. Simply by saying ‘Hello Dark’ has proven – in the author’s experience – to be a fun, engaging way of overcoming the worries and fears of the dark. This delightful story for children aged 5 to 8 can help support them at bedtime and during the day.

Goodreads Link: https://goodreads.com/book/show/53550570-hello-dark

Amazon Link:https://amazon.co.uk/Hello-Dark-John-Coxhead-ebook/dp/B088WL38DC

My Review

I chose to read this book after receiving a free e-copy. All opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased.

Hello Dark is a cute children’s book about a young boy who is afraid of the dark. When his dad realizes this, he teaches him to say, “Hello Dark,” whenever he has to go into a dark room. It works so well, that he teaches his little sister to do it, too.

This is a cute story that’s helpful, too (my favorite kind of book for young children). It gives a fun way to help children deal with fear of the dark. It has illustrations that will keep the attention of youngsters as well.

About the Author

John Coxhead’s first entrance into the world of Children’s writing is the heart-warming book Hello Dark.

This self-help tactic created by John Coxhead has been widely successful, a tactic using repetition, subliminal messaging and most importantly humour. Welcoming and becoming comfortable with the dark is such an important tactic, Hello Dark has proven to be a fun, engaging method that overcomes worries and fears of the Dark. Eradicating these issues, via repetition in different scenarios is key to this method. Please remember to repeat Hello Dark in normal day-to-day life allowing this to be subconsciously embedded.

As we get older and see so many things, our mind records images, along with emotion, matching feelings with moments in time, smells, feelings, fears, and sounds. When the mind captures a moment as an image or remembers a sound that it has seen or heard before, the feeling can repeat, as human our fight or flight mechanism is there for a reason, however we can overthink these feelings. Fundamentally changing the emotion that we related to different situations is key in changing the way you feel about a certain matter. Simply saying ‘Hello Dark’ will evoke happy, warm, family feelings of comfort and humour, allowing the mind to feel safe and changes your child’s mind in relation to the Dark with these warm feelings, replacing feelings of panic, fears and anxiety.

What has been a wonderful feeling is seeing so many children enjoying reading Hello Dark, but also the comments from Parents, Grandparent, Auntie ‘s and Uncles, Brothers and Sisters who have shared their experiences with John. Lastly, the highlight of this book is John’s Children, who firstly benefited from the technique created, but now want to tell others about Hello Dark. John will never forget the moment he and his partner overheard Freddie saying to his little sister Harper, ‘don’t worry Harper I know a trick, just say Hello Dark and everything will be fine’, followed by both of them saying Hello Dark, a moment filed with joyous emotion, they both smiled and that’s when he knew he had to write this book.

Website: hellodark.co.uk

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