Alumni twins co-author children’s book

02/24/2025

As identical twin sisters, Alyssa Cino ’17 and Alexis Cino ’17 have always done things together.

“Alyssa and I are both creatives,” Alexis said. “Just naturally, we love to paint, we love to draw. We’ve always created whenever we are together.”

For Alyssa and Alexis — who at SUNY Cortland chose separate career paths in psychology and criminology — their most recent collaboration led to the creation of a unique children’s book.

Family of Secrets: A Beginner’s Book to Body Safety features engaging illustrations and a rhyming storyline suitable for sharing with children of all ages. The colorful book released late last year aims to create a comfortable conversation around child safety.

Most child sexual abuse occurs at the hands of a family member or family friend rather than a stranger, according to Alexis, who works for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Geared for children, families, educators, counselors and more, Family of Secrets addresses body safety, safe and unsafe secrets, disclosure empowerment, healthy coping skills and healing, and safe adults and support systems.

The project began by serendipity. Alyssa, who works as an elementary school counselor in a Western New York school district, was inspired by Erin’s Law.

“It’s named after a survivor of child sexual abuse,” Alyssa explained of the law that requires public schools to teach sexual abuse and exploitation prevention program classes to students.

Erin’s Law founder Erin Merryn, born in 1985, is an activist against child sexual abuse and the author of Stolen Innocence, Living for Today, An Unimaginable Act and several children’s books. Erin’s Law has been adopted in many states across the country, most recently in New York state.

While looking for more elementary-aged resources on the subject matter, the sisters realized the market was lacking.

“There’s not many books that approach this topic in a way that you can talk to preschool and elementary age children,” Alyssa said. “So that’s kind of where our idea came from.”

“As self-publishers, we did it all ourselves,” Alexis said. “We hired our own illustrator, found our own editor. We are our entire marketing and advertising team.”

The hard work of self-publication allowed them to retain creative control.

“We had an idea for a book that was in our heart, and we weren’t going to let that go,” Alexis said. “We wanted to ensure the quality of the book, of the art, of the words and most importantly, of the mission.”

Their illustrator, Lisa Blakeborough of Minnesota, was discovered online after research and vetting of many qualified illustrators.

“What was important to us was finding an illustrator who was passionate about our mission and our book,” Alexis said. “And Lisa was 100 percent behind what this book stands for and it shows in her work. Her talent brought our story to life.”

The pictures weave together a tale about a “family of secrets,” helping children understand that some kinds of secrets are harmless, and others must be told.

“Our book focuses on providing a resource for educators, parents and caregivers to have those challenging conversations with their child,” Alexis said.

Instead of a dark and frightening storyline, Family of Secrets uses color to promote healing and strength.

“There are stories of children who tell a trusted person who doesn’t believe them, writes them off, or ignores them,” Alexis said.

“In our book, we write ‘Tell your unsafe secret to safe adults, family and friends, until that unsafe behavior finally ends! Even if this unsafe secret is old, if it was unsafe, it needs to be told.’”

Within a few months of publishing, their book has earned raves by parents with young children.

“Our youngest child who had our book read to her was 2-and-a-half years old and loved it,” Alexis said. “It’s never too young to have a conversation as long as you’re having an age-appropriate conversation about body safety. You should talk to your child as they develop. At every stage, at every age, talk to your children about body safety and make it an ongoing conversation.”

At Cortland, Alyssa recruited her sister as a test volunteer in the university’s electroencephalography (EEG) lab in a study about how individuals perceive others’ personalities that was advised by then-associate professors of psychology Leslie Eaton and Raymond Collings. Alyssa later co-presented her findings with a classmate at the Eastern Psychological Association’s annual meeting in Boston.

As the president of Criminology Club at Cortland, Alexis fulfilled its goal to provide students with opportunities to learn more about criminology and possible future careers by setting up appearances from an assistant district attorney, an FBI agent and a university police officer. She also organized a trip to visit a local prison.

“From the start, I knew I wanted to major in psychology and Alexis knew she wanted to major in criminology,” Alyssa said. “Our mom was a teacher for over 30 years, and our father was a police officer, so it’s no surprise that we would continue along the lines of education, law enforcement and safety.”

Both sisters thank SUNY Cortland for providing them the education to pursue their current careers and intertwine them to create this resource.

“We roomed together throughout college,” Alexis said. “We are sisters but we’re best friends. It was inevitable that we would continue working together and doing things together because we have all our life.”

“Did we ever think we would become authors?” Alyssa said. “Probably not.”

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