You Can Say "No!": A Book About Protecting Yourself

by Betty D. Boegehold, Bernice Berk, Carolyn Bracken (Illustrator)

Depicts children in various situations involving adults who attempt to molest them and discusses ways of preventing or dealing with such behavior.

26 pages, Hardcover

First published April 15, 1985

Reviews

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another book from my childhood. This book covers the basics of safety for children... stranger danger sort of safety. It isn't a book for the faint hearted. It covers getting lost, not getting into a strangers car, someone trying to grab you, inappropriate touching by strangers and relatives, and on and on. All in an age appropriate way but... as "matter of fact" as I am I still got twinges reading it to my precious baby boy. It would be nice if we parents didn't have to worry about this sort of thing but alas there are sick people in this world (and there always have been). My son picked this one for the first time. He generally likes to read a book a few times before moving on but I hope we don't dwell on this one too long.

"You have the right to say NO... to say don't do that! You have the right to yell, to run away." (p.26)

[寿理 宮本 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good (but IDEALLY unnecessary) book about explaining Stranger Danger, but not in a way that discounts that we interact with strangers *all the time* and most of them are harmless. Each story is a different possible scenario that a young reader might experience in their lives, and how to correctly deal with it:

- Lost in a store: Talk to a sales person.
- Stranger approaches you in a public area and says your parent wants them to take you home right away: Shout to your actual parent* (even if they aren't really there), to call the stranger's bluff and make others aware of the stranger's actions.
- Person you see regularly but don't "know" talks to you in a way that makes you uncomfortable, and tries to touch you in private areas: Get away and tell your parent* what happened, immediately.
- Stranger tries to take you into a private area such as a hotel room: Fight back—literally—and get away.
- What is "foul play" and how do you avoid getting kidnapped? When "foul play" is suspected, it means somebody is trying to hurt someone else, and you should never go with someone unfamiliar, especially not in their car.
- Friend looks sad and admits that a relative does bad things to them involving taking off their clothes: Encourage the friend to tell a parent.*

I don't know how well this gets the message across for younger readers. I suppose it depends on the reader's age, since the pictures aren't *graphic* or anything, and it's a clean book despite the discussion material. I'd like to share it with some younger readers to see if they understand as well as I hope, but I'm sort of the "stranger" in this context, haha. (Yikes.) Best I would be able to do is hand the book to their parents, but that might seem weird. (Their grandparents might understand, since they're closer to the younger readers and I'm closer to the grandparents, oddly enough. Yay, family.)

Otherwise, really familiar artwork that's cute and... well, it gets the message across without feeling completely inappropriate. I mean, it's in the bounds of inappropriateness: showing that it's wrong without feeling gross about it (though I personally would still have felt gross drawing it, if I had been the artist).

*or guardian or other trusted adult relative, I don't mean to exclude anyone, but trying to streamline what's already a fairly long review for this kind of book

[fisher · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know where to put this book, it's one from my childhood that I'm passing on to my own child and in general I feel it's really held up in terms of quality of message and of execution. The lessons are very important, and I'm hoping that my son's internalizing them without developing unnecessary anxiety, but it's hard to know what necessary or unnecessary these days...

My biggest complaint about this book, oddly enough, is that I can no longer grow a moustache for "Movember" without my son telling me that I look like one of the bad men in it :P

My second complaint echoes that of one of the other reviewers - it's awkward (for me, at least) when a story about a child being molested ends with everyone in good spirits. I don't know what I would have done if I'd written this myself, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have been quite the same.

[Leilani Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book covers some pretty difficult subjects that are hard for parents to have to tell their kids and kids to really understand. The book itself does present things in a way that children can comprehend, but that doesn't mean it's easy to talk about. Like other reviews have said my main issue with this book is that everyone is perfectly peachy after the bad things happen. I think kids that have been through some of these situations need to know that they can be happy again, but it's alright if it takes them a little while before they feel good again. The book has aged fairly well, but I think that after reading it to your kids there should be at least a small discussion with them that expands on the book. You know your kid and what they are mature enough for. I would just try show them it is okay to be scared of things but not to let it take over everything they do.

[Briony · Rating 1 out of 5]

A theme that needs to be discussed with children, but the book made every situation so black and white. Most of the children were completely happy after each incident.

[Scout Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deals with important issues, and has good illustrations.