Book Review: The Berenstain Bears: Blessed are the Peacemakers

 From the Back:

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons of God.”
Matthew 5:9

In this new Berenstain Bears 8x8 book, Blessed are the Peacemakers , Brother and Sister have a wide circle of friends at Bear Country School and they get along with pretty much everyone. But not all their friends get along with each other. Too Tall and his bullying gang, for instance, are often in conflict with Cousin Fred, Ferdy Factual, and their friends. So what happens when the cubs all need to work together on the annual school play? Brother and Sister have to decide whether they should “mind their own business” or get involved as peacemakers and try to calm the troubled waters.

My Reflections:

I have grown up on the Berenstain Bears, and in turn have enthusiastically read this wonderful series to my children as well. This particular children's book is written by Mike Berenstain (the son of the original authors Stan and Jan Berenstain)

The book has a christian theme to it, abet somewhat watered down and vague in its execution. This being said when I read it to my 6 year old she seemed to enjoy the book. When her 12 year old sister re read it to her the next night this older sibling had quite a few questions. One being the fact that if someone quoted scripture in the middle of an argument they were likely to be ignored or bullied as well, and very doubtfully would the bulling party be saying "oh cool", and move on.

The book opened up some great discussions on bullying and the different groups of people within school or social settings. We were able to discuss, in depth strategies to defuse tricky situations, and reference what the bible says about fighting and turning the other cheek. Although I found the book to be surface teaching I was glad to have it on hand to jump-start some valuable discussions in this very prevalent and difficult subject.

The back of the book lists activities and questions you can utilize to help your family work through the issue of bullying. Because our children will not be left unscathed from bulling, a proactive stance is a great way to prepare our children for the realities of living in a fallen world. This resource is just another tool you can use to empower your effectiveness in raising resilient children.

I received this book free of charge form Book Look Bloggers in return for my honest opinion. Thank you Book Look!