Learn How To Be Polite With Gimme-Jimmy

Every child comes down with a case of the “Gimme’s” from time to time.  How do you deal with them in your home?  These days we take out the book, Gimme-Jimmy by Sherrill S. Cannon and read it through again.

James Alexander’s nickname was Jim,

But nobody would be friends with him.

No one wanted to play with Jimmy,

For Jim Alexander always said, “Gimme.”

“Gimme my books,” he’d say.  “Gimme my toys.”

He’d grab from the girls and he’d snatch from the boys.

James Alexander, is more often known as Gimme-Jimmy.  He is a bully and doesn’t care.  Jimmy’s Dad warned him that his hand would grow each time he said “Gimme”, but he took no notice.  Lo and behold…each time he said “Gimme” his had grew and grew!  It soon interfered with tasks as common as tying shoes and writing.

Jimmy’s hand grew until it was bigger than Jimmy!  And he didn’t know what to do.

Jimmy’s dad comes to the rescue, telling him the effects can be reversed by being polite and always saying “Thank you” (in addition to many other polite words and actions).

I love that Sherrill includes children with different skin tones, eye and hair colours in her books.  And each of her books have a moral in them as well.  They all revolve around being polite, helpful, and respectful.  You see children turn their lives around from being bullies, not having friends, and feeling sad to learning a lesson and being helped and guided to use better behaviours, actions, and words.  Then they earn respect, gain new friends and become happier.

After reading Gimme-Jimmy (affiliate link), I though it would be worthwhile to have the children work on a fun project.  They traced around their hands on some large pieces of construction paper.  I say traced, but really they made hands as large as the possibly could to represent Jimmy’s Gimme hand.  Then they wrote something nice that they could do for someone else.  I tried to show them that being greedy will leave you unhappy in the end, but you can be very happy if you think about others and help them.

Some of the things they came up with were:

Smile

Make cards

Say, “Please.”

“May I help you”

Give presents

If you’d like to see a little more about this, and other books Sherrill has written (Peter and The Whimper Whineys, The Magic Word,  My Fingerpaint Masterpiece, Santa’s Birthday Gift, or Manner Man), she has some sample pages available to read on Freado. “I love the music of words, and I try to help children hear that music…”  If you like what you see, you can find out more about Sherrill on her webpage, follow her on Facebook, or learn more about raising money for the JM Foundation.  

The latest press release has Sherrill being the recipient of 28 awards in total for her 6 children’s books!  What an honour, and well-deserved as her books are entertaining, colourful, and also tell a real-life lesson.  My children love her books, and we wonder just what she’ll be coming up with next.

Do you have a Gimme Jimmy in your home?  How do you deal with it?  Let me know by leaving a comment below.

If you’d like to purchase one of Sherrill’s books, they’re available through this affiliate link. To see all of our book reviews, turn over to our Book and Book Activities page.