Title: Bully Ben Makes New Friends
Author: Marriott Cole
Publisher: GoToPublish, LLC
ISBN: 978-1-64749-537-4
Genre: Illustrated Children’s Story
Pages: 38
Reviewed by: Beth Adams
Hollywood Book Reviews
The dedication of this book lists author Marriott Cole’s 7 children and 17 grandchildren – by default indicating her experience with telling a good children’s story! Bully Ben Makes New Friends is filled with fanciful forestry animals and, of course, Bully Ben – a big black bear, grumpy and ornery after emerging from his cave after such a long winter hibernation.
Bully Ben’s past actions are described in the story, which includes clawing a moose on the back end, stealing fish directly from a lynx mouth, chasing a pregnant wolverine away, and simply being the bully that his nickname suggested. Bully Ben then discovers a snowshoe hare entangled in a thorny bush one day. The hare awaited its demise at the hands of Bully Ben, the thorns that surrounded the hare were removed carefully and the hare was released. The wife of Ben had passed away, and he became very lonely, so he transformed himself from a big-bad-bully-bear to a kind and strong animal helper, and he began to make new friends.
He assisted a moose whose horns became stuck in a tree, a porcupine who fell upside down and became stuck in a ditch, a lynx caught in a trap set by hunters and continued to perform similar acts of kindness with every creature throughout the forest. What goes around comes around, and by the end of the book, Bully Ben had a slew of new pals. As the moral of the story, the author quotes the Bible, “A man who has friends must himself be friendly”.
This story, beautifully illustrated with detailed pictures of forest fauna and animal images, will capture the imaginations of all readers as they learn about some of the many species of animals that inhabit North American forests. The animals showing human-like personalities were in desperate need of help for a variety of reasons, and after overcoming their fear of being eaten by Ben, they discovered the kindness coming from such a fearsome creature to be a life-saving experience and promised never to forget how crucial Bully Ben’s actions were at a time when they needed someone to come to their rescue.
“Bully Ben Makes New Friends” by Marriott Cole, accomplishes her goals to make a significant impact in the lives of children by demonstrating the importance of a friendly and caring personality over being a bully. Wherein, to gain friends in such a matter is a life lesson that Bully Ben himself can attest to.