In this book, Sister Bear goes to the playground and is beaten up by a bully. Sister Bear’s family is upset this happened but different members of the family have different plans of action. Sister Bear’s parents want her to avoid the bully while Brother Bear wants to beat up the bully. He discovers the bully is a girl and teaches Sister Bear to fight instead. At school she punches the bully and they’re both sent to the principal. In the end, they decide it’s better to talk out emotions. I would recommend this story to children because it has a good moral, and the characters deal with the situation in a realistic way that other children could relate to. I liked the story because I used to read these books when I was younger, and the characters in this series are lively and keep the reader engaged.

When Sister Bear gets beaten up by Tuffy, the new cub in town, Brother huffs off to set this bully straight. But he's in for a surprise--Tuffy's a little girl, and Brother just can't bring himself to fight her. Recommended for ages 4-8.

The Berenstain Bears and the Bully by Stan and Jan Berenstain is a book that many people can relate to. The message in this book is about bullying, and even though someone may seem tough on the outside, on the inside they may be hurting. Someone should not be judged for how they act because you may have no idea what their life is like at home. Sister bear came home from school after being beaten up by a bully, and Brother was not happy. Brother decides to teach Sister how to defend herself, and Sister ends up punching the bully in the face. After going to the principal’s office, the bully says, “If the principal tells my mom and dad about this, I won’t be able to sit down for a-well, a long time”. Child abuse can be a very touchy subject, but the author did a very good job of bringing it up in a discrete way. Although it is important to discuss bullying, some children reading this book may think it is okay to punch someone if they are getting bullied, when that is not the right way to solve things at all. The illustrations in this book do a good job of showing the emotions that each character is feeling. Each image is very colorful and attractive to the eye. The author uses italicize for certain words to emphasize the meaning, which can help the reader understand how the character is feeling. ( )

In this Berenstain Bears book, Sister Bear comes home crying with torn clothes. She was beaten up by Tuffy,who was the new cub in town. While Sister, Mama and Papa Bear go inside to discuss the situation Brother Bear heads over to the park to confront Tuffy. But when he gets there, he's in for a big surprise, Tuffy is a girl, and a small one at that. Brother Bear knows that if he hits her, he'll be the bully. So he comes up with an idea, to teach Sister Bear how to fight in case Tuffy confronts her again. Sister Bear agrees and learns how to fight, though she decides to stay away from Tuffy is she can help it. However, a situation at school occurs and Sister Bear ends up punching Tuffy right in the nose. The two cubs are brought to the principles office and Sister Bear finds out that Tuffy has a tough home life. This is another great book to read when discussing bullies. A teacher can never stress enough how important it is to talk to someone if a student is being bullied. A group activity would be where students come up with different ideas on how to deal with bullies in a safe, none violence way. ( )

53 months - Very little useful learning for today's world of zero tolerance... at least at school. ( )