The Right Touch: A Read-Aloud Story to Help Prevent Child Sexual Abuse (Jody Bergsma Collection) [Hardcover]

Sandy Kleven (Author), Jody Bergsma (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 4 and up | Grade Level: P and up | Series: Jody Bergsma Collection

The Right Touch reaches beyond the usual scope of a children's picture book. It is a parenting book that introduces a very difficult topic--the sexual abuse of young children. This gentle, thoughtful story can be read aloud to a child by any trusted caregiver.

In the story, young Jimmy's mom explains the difference between touches that are positive and touches that are secret, deceptive or forced. She tells him how to resist inappropriate touching, affirming that abuse is not the child s fault.

The introduction provides valuable information about sexual abuse and guidance on what to do if your child experiences an abusive situation. Jody Bergsma's gentle illustrations soften the impact of this story; yet this portrayal of a dangerous situation is very realistic. If your child is old enough to sit still and listen to a story, he or she is old enough for The Right Touch.

Used by parents and teachers nationwide to help children avoid sexual abuse, this book won the 1999 Benjamin Franklin Parenting Award. It was a finalist for the Small Press Award and was also "Selected as Outstanding" by the Parent Council, Ltd.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

PreSchool-Grade 3AA picture book that clearly instructs children on how to deal with unwanted and inappropriate touching through a heart-to-heart talk between a little boy and his mother. The author sensitively distinguishes between the loving touch we all need and "secret, deceptive, or forced touching." Children are encouraged to listen to their own feelings, assert their right to stop unwanted contact, and get help from trusted adults "even if it is supposed to be a secret." An informative foreword to adults gives valuable information on communicating personal safety to children and advice for helping those who report abuse. The illustrations of big-eyed children, comfy teddy bears, and fuzzy pets are not distinguished but do contribute to the cozy, safe tone of the book. The primary audience will be parents looking for materials to help them introduce this important topic, but older children will find the clarity and warmth of the message reassuring on their own.ACarolyn Lehman, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Author

Teaching prevention skills really does help children.  When they know this problem exists in the world, they are less apt to go along with the lies and manipulation of the perpetrator.  But there are more subtle positive impacts from the book.  Accounts told to me personally over the course of a long career, accounts supported by research on the subject, show that when children disclose to a parent, the response is often dismissive.  "You must have misunderstood him,"  "He wouldn't do that." Or even, "Don't let me ever hear you say that again."  THE RIGHT TOUCH, also educates parents.  It demonstrates an appropriate loving response to a disclosing child.  Sure, there are other dynamics a-foot when parents won't listen.  A disclosure often comes as a world-shaking shock and if a parent has at least been exposed to the idea of listening, believing and helping, they have these ideas to fall back on.  When a child discloses, a jarring image of what they are saying flashes in the mind, with the stunned sense that asks "How could someone do this?"  These disclosures are hard to hear.  The mind wants to retreat.  I think this is why so many readers post violent responses to the news stories about a sexual abuse arrest.  As disclosures play out in life, adults in the circle around the disclosing child, do not necessarily display the same vigilant abhorrence.  The response is, in a sense, just as violent, and it may come from the same root -- they want to expunge it, make it disappear -- so they decide it never happened.  They say "I can't believe it," and they don't, because the child is often disclosing to the non-offending partner of the one accused.  Telling Mom about Dad.  Telling Mom about her boyfriend.  Given the accounts of adults victimized as children, speaking to me personally, or in the extensive literature on the subject, I have to believe that not believing the child is more common than belief and action.  THE RIGHT TOUCH helps with this knee-jerk denial, this "head in the sand" reaction.  It introduces the possibility of such harm and prepares a parent for an appropriate response.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 4 and up
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Illumination Arts Publishing Company; 1 edition (April 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0935699104
• ISBN-13: 978-0935699104
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.7 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,313 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Author, Sandra Kleven works as a Behavioral Health Consultant in an outpatient native medical center. As a licensed clinical social worker, with a specialty in young children, Kleven has traveled extensively in Alaska - mainly in small planes, spending the night in children's classrooms.

Kleven written two books to protect children from abuse and a collection of dramatic narratives, titled, HOLY LAND. This book recently became available on Amazon. (Scroll down for more about Kleven's work in prevention).

About HOLY LAND, Sandra Kleven says, "It spilled out of me after I'd been away from Bethel, Alaska, for about eleven years. It was a big deal writing that way. Blew me away. It wasn't my voice talking. I'd never even heard of the concept 'writing in persona' but that's what I did."

Kleven held back for several years, before she dared to submit it. "I went back to the Delta the year after it was written and stayed another six years. The second immersion brought me closer to the heart of things. It was predicted in the writing, 'The day will come when you and I meet again. You will hold out your hand and I will look in your palm and I will see what you are holding back or holding in. I will find the mark I left on you.' I wear some of these scars proudly. Most of them, actually. I have the Japanese character for Warrior tattooed near my heart - the high school mascot for Bethel and for the village of Hooper Bay. That's another mark. I am proudly damaged. I have experienced post traumatic growth (a concept from friend, Rufus Reese)." HOLY LAND was out of print for a couple of years. Now it's available on Amazon.

"HOLY LAND strikes a nerve. Sandra Kleven's unflinching and compelling dramatic monologue is a journey to a sacred and painful place in Bush Alaska's human heart." Ron Spatz, Editor,

THE RIGHT TOUCH is a guide for Talking About Sexual Abuse

According to Sandy Kleven, the right time is right now. "Talking to your kids about sexual abuse is not easy. Parents are afraid they'll say too much or say the wrong thing. THE RIGHT TOUCH guides parents through the prevention lesson. It gives concrete information as well as the important, indirect, message that we can talk about this in our family. If kids are going to tell when something happens, they need to know this."

THE RIGHT TOUCH has been a helping resource since 1998 when it received a Benjamin Franklin Award as the best parenting book of the year. Now, in print for twelve years, it remains the best-selling prevention story book in the country.

At this time, Kleven is completing a new book, TALK ABOUT TOUCH: ALASKA. An Alaska village setting will be familiar to many children. The prevention lesson makes more sense when given in context.

Kleven has worked in prevention education since 1980, when she founded and directed the SOAPBOX Players, who served Northwest Washington with "The Touching Problem." Kleven won a Seattle Area Emmy Award when KVOS TV produced a video of the program.

Kleven left Washington State for a remote part of Alaska, near the Bering Sea coast. This move would forever impact her writing. HOLY LAND, was the first piece so influenced -- a dramatic monologue first performed at the Last Frontier Theater Conference. It was later published in ALASKA QUARTERLY REVIEW.

Kleven's poetry and other writing has also appeared in CIRQUE, OKLAHOMA REVIEW, STONE BOAT, F- MAGAZINE, PRAXILLA,DELTA DISCOVERY and TOPIC MAGAZINE (NYC). Another dramatic narrative, "Open Water" appears in the Alaska themed anthology, COLD FLASHES. Two of Kleven's poems have been nominated for the 2012 Pushcart Prize.

Kleven has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Alaska, Anchorage. In 2009, Kleven received a second Celebration Foundation (Portland, Oregon) award to support her creative work. In 2010, she produced a short film "To the Moon," an homage to the poet, Theodore Roethke.

She is at work now on, TALK ABOUT TOUCH: ALASKA, which reshapes the prevention story to the setting and culture of rural Alaska. This small book will take on a big statistic - as reports of sexual abuse in Alaska occur at a rate that is six times the national average. This book is being published by Illumination Arts. It will be out in spring of 2012.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

66 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Love means telling the truth., November 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Right Touch: A Read-Aloud Story to Help Prevent Child Sexual Abuse (Jody Bergsma Collection) (Hardcover)

The only reason to give this little book 5 stars is the lack of a 6 star category. My own children are grown now, but this is a book we will share with future grandchildren. My children were educated about "right and wrong touches" at home, in school, and at church. Thankfully they were spared such an experience, I was not. As a survivor of childhood molestation who told no one for nearly 20 years, I felt all the responsibilty for the abuse, and the total inability to tell a parent, teacher, or friend. Some of the scare are with me still, but Sandy's book empowers child and parent alike. The language, illustrations, and approach are frank but gentle. Presentation is sensitive to very young children, and different terms for body parts. The read-aloud thrust strengthens parent-child interaction about this vital topic. Best of all, the refences for further reading and help organizations provides the tools to go further in education, or to obtain assistance if the worst case has occurred. Actually the worst of all cases is to have abuse, and no one to tell. Bless you Sandy, keep books like these coming!

53 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A lovely, warm, wise treatment of a very difficult topic., June 27, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Right Touch: A Read-Aloud Story to Help Prevent Child Sexual Abuse (Jody Bergsma Collection) (Hardcover)

The book is a wee bit bigger than 8 1/2 by 11, a very good size for reading to a child. It is gorgeously and warmly illustrated by Jody Bergsma, a woman of great talent and much understanding of the child's eye.

This is a book for helping to prevent child sexual abuse. Sandy is an expert in this problem, and has done much work to help put an end to it. In this book she has done a very great service to a (hopefully) much wider audience.

There is a "note to parents and teachers" at the beginning of the book, which discusses the question of child sexual abuse in a succinct, knowing, and helpful manner, better than I've ever seen it dealt with.

Then the story. I really like the way that Sandy has chosen to present this difficult topic. The book describes a conversation between a loving mother and her son Jimmy, in which she gently and carefully raises the topic of "touching problems" and goes on from there. This must be a godsend for parents who might have difficulty in starting a conversation about something so intimate. They can "break the ice" by reading this book to their child, and then perhaps repeat the conversation with their own child for real. The converstion between Jimmy and his mother covers just about everything that a small child needs to know, in a very subtle, gentle, and wise way. Like when intimate touching is OK (doctor, diaper changing, parental tending to hurts, etc.). Like how to say NO to somebody. Like how sexual touching is really not that much different from bullying and playing tricks: it's bad, it's not your fault, and grownups can help you stop it.

There is great wisdom in this book. I see it especially in what Sandy has chosen to leave out. There are no graphic details, just phrases such as "touching you under your clothes". There is no need for more, since if things have gone that far they are already very wrong, and that's all that a small child has to know. There is no naming of body parts. There *is* a picture of ! a girl's body and a boy's body, but Sandy chose to leave out the labels and let parents choose the words that they are comfortable with.

I won't go much further in describing this book - you all should order it and see for yourself - but I will give one last word of praise for Jody Bergsma's illustration on the back cover: it's called "Garden of Children" and depicts children and animals expressing various emotions, in a big beautiful collage of faces. It's apparently used much by counsellors in helping very young people identify their feelings. My two young readers commented the most about that illustration. It's available as a poster, too, but I won't tell you how to order it. You have to buy Sandy's book to find out.

49 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well done-Wise Parental Instrument!, June 27, 2000

By 

Bernadette A. Moyer (Lutherville, MD USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Right Touch: A Read-Aloud Story to Help Prevent Child Sexual Abuse (Jody Bergsma Collection) (Hardcover)

The best source I have seen to date for very young children on the subject of sexual abuse. Such a tough subject and very well written and illustrated.

Every parent should be pro-active and discuss abuse, this title is sure to open the door to communication. It also does so in a child friendly manner and does not shock or upset even the most conservative reader.

An invaluable and excellent tool for any adult to help educate and arm young innocent children. Perfect addition for any library.