Welcome to the Tom Tom Universe

Welcome to The Counsellor Tomass J. Wood Collection

Stories, Education, Understanding and Different Bridges to Brighter Futures

Welcome to the creative world of Counsellor Tomass J. Wood — psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, counsellor in mental health, neurodivergent author, educator and creator of the Tom Tom Universe.

This collection has grown from something intensely personal.

I am AuDHD — autistic and ADHD — and my writing is shaped by my own experiences of neurodivergence, education, childhood, trauma, creativity, music, psychology and an almost endless curiosity about people and the world around us.

I also grew up through difficult experiences, including childhood abuse. Those experiences influence the stories I choose to tell and the resources I want to create. I cannot rewrite my childhood, but I can write some of the stories I wish I had been able to read during it: stories where children are listened to, feelings have names, behaviour is understood rather than immediately judged, and being different does not mean being less.

At the centre of everything is a simple idea:

There is rarely only one way to learn, communicate, understand yourself or reach your destination. Sometimes we simply need a different Bridge.

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The Tom Tom Universe

The Tom Tom Universe is much more than a collection of children's stories.

Tom Tom is inspired by me as a child: curious, imaginative, musical, impulsive, sensitive, constantly questioning and experiencing the world through a neurodivergent brain.

Many Tom Tom adventures are inspired by genuine childhood experiences and real people who were part of my life.

Through those stories, children encounter friendship, family, mistakes, excitement, fear, sensory experiences, routines, learning, music, safety, confidence and belonging.

Rather than making neurodivergence something that is explained at the child, the stories allow readers to experience the world alongside Tom Tom.

The Four Pillars of the Tom Tom Universe

At the heart of the Universe are four ideas:

🧠 Brian's — What's happening inside me?

Tom Tom imagines the different processes within his mind as his different Brian's.

Curious Brian asks questions.
Questioning Brian wants answers.
Imagination Brian creates possibilities.
Worry Brian anticipates problems.
Safety Brian tries to protect him.
Sensitive Brian notices deeply.
Learning Brian wants to understand.
Hope Brian looks forwards.

There are many more.

None of the Brian's are inherently bad.

They provide children with accessible language for something that can otherwise be incredibly difficult to express:

“This is what is happening inside my head.”

🌊 Waves — How much am I experiencing?

Feelings move like Waves.

Tom Tom might experience a Small Wave, Medium Wave, Big Wave or Storm.

Waves aren't simply about being upset. Excitement, anticipation, happiness, sensory stimulation, fear and love can all create enormous Waves.

Instead of immediately asking how we stop a behaviour, Waves encourage another question:

“What is this child's brain and body experiencing?”

⭕ Circles — What helps me feel safe?

Circles are the familiar things that come around again.

A routine.
A person.
A favourite object.
A song.
A place.
A special interest.
Knowing what happens next.

Circles provide predictability and security.

They aren't there to imprison Tom Tom inside a tiny world. They can provide the secure starting point from which he feels able to explore a much bigger one.

🌉 Bridges — How can I get from here to there?

Sometimes Tom Tom knows where he wants to go but cannot reach it by the expected route.

He needs a Bridge.

A Bridge might be another person, preparation, communication, music, reassurance, a familiar object, visual information, a shared interest or simply a different way of approaching something.

The destination doesn't always need to change. Sometimes the route does.

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Meet Tom Tom

Meet Tom Tom is the introduction to the wider Universe.

A family trip to Ringwood Carnival introduces Tom Tom, Nanny Jax, Amy, Alic, Nanny Elcy, Pops and his treasured Pound Pups.

Through the excitement of the afternoon parade, familiar family Circles, the evening parade, bright lights, noise and the funfair, readers begin to understand Tom Tom's Brian's, Waves, Circles and Bridges naturally through his experiences.

It establishes the language and philosophy that connects the books that follow.

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The Tom Tom Starter Trilogy

Three particularly important stories form the Tom Tom Starter Trilogy.

🔥 Tom Tom, the Fire, and the Special Pound Puppy

Based upon a genuine childhood experience, this story begins with curiosity and a box of matches before becoming a frightening accidental house fire.

It explores safety, fear, guilt, forgiveness and the importance a comfort object can have to a child.

When Tom Tom believes his treasured Pound Puppy has been lost in the fire, Firefighter Ben understands that Puppy isn't just a toy. Puppy represents familiarity, memory and safety — one of Tom Tom's earliest Circles.

The story ultimately becomes one about mistakes, compassion, learning and hope.

🎵 Tom Tom and the Music Box

This story explores another important part of my childhood: music.

Through St Thomas Church, Mrs Matthews, the vicar's cottage, an old music box and a baby grand piano, Tom Tom discovers something capable of capturing his attention completely.

Music becomes more than sound.

It becomes fascination, emotional expression, connection and a Bridge between Tom Tom and the people around him.

🥁 Tom Tom and the Marching Bands

Tom Tom's musical journey continues through the Boys' Brigade, East Dorset Scout Band and Dolphin Marching Band, eventually returning to the excitement of Ringwood Carnival.

Marching bands offer rhythm, repetition, belonging and shared purpose.

The story explores friendship, sensory experiences, confidence, perseverance and discovering somewhere that your differences can become strengths.

Together, these three books take genuine experiences from my childhood and transform them into stories through which today's children can develop emotional understanding.

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More Tom Tom Childhood Adventures

The Universe continues into stories inspired by the ordinary and extraordinary experiences of growing up.

These include adventures around Tom Tom's first day at school, preschool, Cub Scouts, Spain, Ringwood Carnival, chores, the dentist and his special ears, alongside other stories drawn from childhood memories.

Something doesn't have to look enormous to an adult to be enormous to a child.

A dentist's chair can create a Storm.

A familiar person can become a Circle.

A shared fascination can become a Bridge.

An apparently silly behaviour may be communicating something the child cannot yet put into words.

That philosophy runs throughout Tom Tom's world.

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Tom Tom's Feelings

Tom Tom and His Feelings — Understanding My Brains, My Behaviour and Me takes children further into emotional literacy and self-understanding.

It explores the relationship between what a child feels internally and what adults may observe externally.

The aim isn't to excuse every behaviour.

It is to understand that behaviour can be communication.

Once we understand what is being communicated, we are in a much better position to teach, support and establish safe boundaries.

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Tom Tom's Wonderful World of Learning

Education is another major part of the Universe.

Tom Tom's Wonderful World of Learning — From Shapes and Sounds to GCSE Thinking is designed to build learning progressively while remaining accessible to children who may not thrive through conventional teaching alone.

It grows from foundational concepts towards increasingly sophisticated thinking while using the familiarity and philosophy of Tom Tom's world.

Related works include Tom Tom and His Shapes and Tom Tom and His Sounds, allowing curiosity and experimentation to become gateways into learning.

There is also Tom Tom's Wonderful World of Wisdom, exploring wondering, Waves, people, making and the universe.

The objective is not simply to tell children information.

It is to encourage them to wonder.

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Tom Tom's Special Learners

This part of my work is especially important to me because it reflects my own educational journey.

I struggled with GCSEs and was fortunate to become part of a pilot scheme giving lower-achieving and special educational needs learners access to college.

I achieved my first City & Guilds qualification at fifteen.

That became my gateway into further education.

It taught me something I have never forgotten:

Difficulty succeeding through one educational system does not mean somebody is incapable of succeeding.

That experience inspired my Special Learners resources.

The collection includes:

Tom Tom's Special Learners: Functional Skills Level 1

Tom Tom's Special Learners: Functional Skills Level 2

Functional Skills — Exam Preparation Guide

These books are intended to support practical English, mathematics, communication, confidence and preparation for nationally recognised skills pathways.

I want learners who struggle within traditional academic structures to see another possibility.

A different pathway is still a pathway.

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Reflection, Emotional Development and Self-Understanding

The Universe also extends beyond conventional books.

I have developed concepts including Tom Tom Reflection Cards and Tom Tom Runes.

The Reflection Cards use combinations of images and ideas to encourage a child to create a different reflective story each day around hope, emotions and personal development.

The Runes apply a related principle through twelve symbols that can be combined and interpreted reflectively.

These are not intended as fortune-telling devices.

Their purpose is storytelling, reflection, emotional regulation, imagination and helping children explore what something means to them.

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My Young Adult Novels

Beyond Tom Tom is another side of my writing.

My YA and crossover fiction explores much darker territory.

These stories investigate memory, trauma, abuse, coercive control, identity, exploitation, survival, family, time, consciousness and what happens when the people or places that should protect a young person become sources of danger.

My works include titles and series such as:

The Memory Shop
The Children of the Quantock
The Boy Who Stole Tomorrow
The Key to Yesterday
The House That Forgot Us
The House That Remembered
The Boy Who Ran
The Thought Thieves
The Eventide series
Children of the Rain trilogy
and my larger Phaeton/Mars work.

Some stories explore fantastical ideas.

Others confront difficult experiences inside families and homes.

Across them, I repeatedly return to questions of memory, identity, choice and survival.

Who are we when somebody else has controlled our story?

What does childhood leave behind?

Can somebody escape the patterns they inherited?

And what happens when a young person finally discovers that another future is possible?

My experiences of childhood abuse inevitably influence this part of my writing.

Sometimes fiction allows me to create the protection, intervention, understanding or different outcome that I wish had existed in parts of my own childhood.

The difficult subject matter matters.

But so does hope.

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Psychology, Self-Help and Understanding People

My professional background as a psychotherapist, hypnotherapist and counsellor in mental health naturally influences my writing.

My wider work explores emotional wellbeing, relationships, communication, self-understanding, confidence, behaviour and personal development.

I want psychological ideas to be understandable outside the therapy room.

Knowledge becomes more useful when somebody can recognise it in their own life and actually do something with it.

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Curiosity, Consciousness and the Universe

Then there is my Questioning Brain.

I have always been fascinated by questions that lead to more questions.

My personal investigations and thought experiments have explored subjects including waves, particles, light, time, consciousness and the double-slit experiment.

These writings are exploratory rather than attempts to replace established physics.

They represent something fundamental about me as a writer:

I love the rabbit hole.

Sometimes asking an unusual question is valuable even when the eventual answer is that your original idea was wrong.

Curiosity is how we learn.

It is also how stories begin.

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Why Neurodivergent Books and Resources Matter

This is perhaps the most important part of the entire collection.

Neurodivergent children spend enormous amounts of time being told what their behaviour looks like from the outside.

Too loud.

Too quiet.

Too distracted.

Too emotional.

Too restless.

Too rigid.

Not concentrating.

Not joining in.

Not coping.

But what does the experience feel like from inside the child?

That is the space I want my work to enter.

A child needs more than a label.

Knowing that you have ADHD or that you are autistic can be incredibly important, but children also need language for everyday experience.

Why did that noise suddenly become unbearable?

Why do I desperately need to know what happens next?

Why can I talk endlessly about one subject but struggle to speak in another situation?

Why did something tiny suddenly feel enormous?

Why does this object, routine or person make everything feel safer?

That is why Tom Tom has his Brian's, Waves, Circles and Bridges.

They are not intended to replace professional terminology or suggest that every neurodivergent person experiences the world like Tom Tom.

They are a starting language.

A child might be able to say:

“My Worry Brian is really loud.”

“I'm getting a Big Wave.”

“I need my Circle.”

“I can't do it that way. Can we build a Bridge?”

Those words can open conversations.

And that matters because neurodivergent education should not be solely about teaching children how to appear less neurodivergent.

It should also help them understand themselves.

I want resources that recognise strengths without romanticising difficulties.

Resources that teach safety without shame.

Resources that encourage independence without withdrawing support.

Resources that acknowledge sensory and emotional needs while still allowing children to learn, explore and grow.

And educational resources that refuse to assume academic difficulty means lack of intelligence or potential.

My own life taught me that sometimes the difference between “I can't” and “I can” is simply finding the right route.

That is ultimately what connects everything I write.

From a five-year-old Tom Tom clutching his Pound Puppy...

to a teenager trying to survive the events of a YA novel...

to a Special Learner searching for another route into education...

the question is remarkably similar:

Where are you now?

Where do you want to go?

What is your brain telling you?

And what Bridge can we build to help you get there?

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The Counsellor Tomass J. Wood Collection

Stories for children.

Resources for neurodivergent learners.

Alternative approaches to education.

Emotional-development tools.

Young Adult fiction that isn't afraid of difficult subjects.

Psychology and self-understanding.

Curiosity about consciousness, science and the universe.

Different books.

Different readers.

Different journeys.

But one underlying belief:

Nobody should be written off simply because their path looks different.

Welcome to my work.

Welcome to the Tom Tom Universe.

And welcome to a collection built around curiosity, compassion, learning, difference and the possibility of a brighter tomorrow.

Counsellor Tomass J. Wood
Author | Psychotherapist | Hypnotherapist | Counsellor in Mental Health | Creator of the Tom Tom Universe

Small Stories. Big Feelings. Brighter Tomorrows.