Charlene's Choice

Elizabeth Levin is a professor of psychology at Laurentian University.

These three books are intended to help children develop their
self-esteem. All of the books are written in verse, include colorful
illustrations, and contain a moral dilemma for children to resolve.

In It’s No Joke, My Telephone Broke, the teacher decides to have her
class play broken telephone. The point of the game is to see how
confused a message can become, not to keep it clear. When the last child
gets on the line and gets quite dismayed at getting the initial phrase
wrong, the teacher advises that one must listen and speak clearly and
that speaking up is the right thing to do. While the message of speaking
one’s thoughts and standing up for them is important, choosing the
broken telephone game as a means of communicating this is awkward, since
this is not the point of the game. However, at the end of the story some
ideas are provided on how parents can support the development of
communication skills in their children.

In Charlene’s Choice, the moral dilemma involves making a difficult
decision. Charlene must decide if she will tattle on her friend. She
chooses to talk to her teacher, but the actual ending to the story is
left to the reader. This is a neat strategy for practising
age-appropriate decision-making, the skill the book is trying to teach.

In Now I See How Great I Can Be, Niron develops self-esteem as he
learns to do something he was sure he could not do.

Interestingly, all the stories take place in school, although all the
tips are directed to parents. These books are useful starting points for
prompting discussions in both the classroom and at home, but they are
not the kinds of stories kids will want to read over and over.
Recommended.