A Children's Book About Being Selfish: Help Me Be Good Series

I had these books for my children when they were growing up. Now I am buying them for my grand children.

These books are great for teaching kids about behavior choices. It helps them understand why they do things as well as why others behave the way they do. My 7 yr old loves these books! This book in particular was helpful as my son is an only child with lots of cousins and this was a way for me to reinforce sharing without making my son feel like I was picking on him.

I read these books as a child and now have bought them for my kids. Love them! Truly teaches life lessons.

This book could have been better. First of all, the main topics are between Katie and Sam. Firstly, Katie refusing to share her snacks with Sam (probably because she fears they could have her germs or Sam might spread his germs if she bothers to share) and then when she refuses to share her toys with him (probably because she fears he might break them, even if it’s an accident), and then when she chooses to exclude him from the video game fun, and later when she offers him to play with her to give another chance, but he declines and decides to walk away and refuses to associate with her. Later, the rest of the book shifts more focus on Sam and he decides to jump ship and hang out with a different friend: Tami. From that point on, he and Tami spend their time sharing and caring; and adding insult to injury, Katie is omitted from the rest of the story without a single resolution or reconciliation where she decides to apologize and make up with Sam whom she decided to be selfish to in the first place. Overall, the story should have made Katie the primary focus instead of Sam who decides to dump Katie and hang out with someone else due to Katie being selfish. It should have been a temporary falling out between Katie and Sam where they had every opportunity to reconcile and how Katie could have easily reflected on her own actions that led to Sam walking away from her. If she actually decided to stop being selfish after all, it would have actually taught kids a lesson better on how selfishness can lead to some short-term loss of friendship instead of putting Sam in a position to hold a grudge against her. Ms. Berry could have done a much better job writing this book and how a once-selfish person can reconcile with someone they wronged and actually apologize for their selfish demeanor, instead of Sam shifting to spending time with Tami at the expense of Katie’s willingness to apologize and understand the importance of sharing and selflessness.

This book is great, and price is very reasonable.

Great

Young children often need to learn through adult guidance how to share so A Children's Book About Being Selfish is a great book to read to children to get a discussion started using leading open-ended questions. Children learn more when they can express their own ideas and relate them to how they play and act with their peers. Sharing or not being selfish is a learned skill for young children. I have owned a set of Joy Berry books for many years and used them with a number of different preschool classes over the years.

The "Help Me Be Good" series of books were the best lessons I ever learned as a child. I would go into my closet, in my quiet space and read book after book. They kept my attention and I truly learned how to treat people with respect. I'm 25 now, but I grew up on this series of books and they taught me exactly what they were aiming to teach. I'm grateful for them even now, 15-20 years later! Parents always tell their children not to do something without actually teaching them why-these books taught me WHY I SHOULDN'T do bad things and I am grateful. So grateful that I held onto the books as a teen. But I finally passed them down to my little cousins and they are the most well behaved children you will see. I felt so good reading these books because it taught me that good behavior is rewarded and bad behavior is frowned upon. Not only should your child read these books, but you can further teach them why they should be good and not bad. I passed them down to my cousins who passed them down to others. And I think they are still relevant. Definitely buy this book as well as other ones in this series of books! I learned and so can your child.

Excellent value