Florenza Denise Lee

Barry Bear’s Very Best, Learning to Say No to Negative Influences. Barry is a book designed to encourage children who are kind, considerate, and thoughtful to continue being as such. Barry allows children to know that they are able to make a positive influence in the lives of others. Barry Bear’s Very best, Learning to Say No to Negative Influences is a book about a very kind bear named Barry. He is known in his home, neighborhood, and school as being thoughtful and considerate. When new cubs move in, who are neither kind nor considerate, Barry’s resilience is tested. Throughout the book, Barry is able to meet the challenges of bullying and negativity with positivity until he pressured to use drugs and alcohol. Barry immediately informs his mom who gives Barry additional tools to use. She also shares with the cubs’ mom the information she has received. The beautiful illustrations show the positive changes in the behavior of the new cubs as well as the passing of time. Once grown, Barry shares with his own children the tools he received from his mom, thus empowering them to be resilient in the presence of peer pressures. Barry was written based on a poem that the author, Florenza Lee previously wrote for her daughters’ school nearly 25 years ago. As she had not used the poem for anything further, her daughter, Melissa suggested she write a book centered on it. She chose to use bears as the main characters so that no one specific group of people were identified as being bullies, drug users, or negative influencers. All children and families are able to identify with Barry and his struggles to remain positive and kind. At the back of the book, there are tools drafted from Stop Bullying Now for children who are bullied, witness bullying, or are the bully. Barry is intended for readers ages 6 – 8, though readers of all ages fully enjoy its message. She hopes you enjoy reading her book-baby as much as she enjoyed writing it.