4 out of 4 stars
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The Barnyard Buddies STOP for Peace is a children’s book aimed at educating children (and potentially parents, caregivers, and teachers) about effective communication strategies for resolving conflict.
The book tells the story of a group of animals who live on a farm. While the sun shines, everyone is happy, but conflict arises when it starts to rain. A horse called King takes the dry spot under the barn roof. The other animals are cold, wet and angry. Mrs. McCloud, the animals’ friend and barnyard peacemaker, helps the animals to communicate about their feelings and solve the problem by using the STOP method.
The book is a fun and entertaining read. The text, by Julie Penshorn, tells an engaging story, mainly through rhyme. The colourful illustrations, by Jorry Keith, make the pages attractive to the intended audience of 3 - 8 - year - olds. I read the story with my 6 - year - old, who loved the pictures, and identified the different animals in the pictures while listening to me reading the story aloud. She has asked to read it again a number of times, and has liked talking together about how the animals in the story felt, how they solved their problem, and how we can talk about our feelings and solve our problems in similar ways.
There was one section, on page 13, where the language structure was awkward: “ “I feel angry when one gets it all.” “Me too.” exclaimed Pig. “Me too,” said them all.” “ Ultimately however, this did not detract from our enjoyment of the story, or from the clear educational message of the book.
The book comes with an educational guide for parents and teachers, which includes some great resources for developing children’s learning about communication and conflict resolution. I teach English as a Second Language to groups of children in the target age group for this book. I can see great potential for reading this story with my students in order to combine literacy development with wider communication and conflict resolution skills, and to set up expectations for positive classroom communication. I am very much looking forward to using this story in my classroom. There is also sheet music for an accompanying song, which the musically inclined can sing with the child or children they read the book with.
This book has all the elements of a great children’s book. It’s fun, engaging, and educational, and comes with comprehensive resources for adults to help the children get the absolute most out of the story. Therefore I rate this book 4 out of 4 stars.
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The Barnyard Buddies STOP for Peace
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