07/11/2026
So many of the children I sit with carry a quiet kind of worry — the kind that shows up as "I don't want to go" or "I don't want to try" long before anyone names it as anxiety.
That's the heart of Stacy Phipps Faces Her Fears the H-E-R-O Way.
Stacy is a curious, sensitive girl who finds new things — new friends, new situations — genuinely hard. With the steady support of her therapist, Dr. Simon, she doesn't just "get over" her fears. She learns a simple, repeatable way through them, the H-E-R-O way:
Smile and say "Hi" to a new classmate. Make the "Effort" to ask to play. Show "Respect" by accepting her classmate's differences. "Observe" how her classmate responds.
It's a small sequence, but it gives children something concrete to hold onto in a moment that otherwise just feels big and scary — and it gives parents language for what bravery can actually look like, one small step at a time.
I wrote this book because I wanted children who feel this way to see themselves in a story — and I wanted the parents reading alongside them to have language for what's happening underneath the surface, not just the behavior on top of it.
If this sounds like a child or family you know, I'd love for this story to find its way to them: https://a.co/d/0ggkUb0M
