Bullying/Meanness

Contributor's Form (list #48)

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  ?? Bootsie Barker
• ? Iggie's House. (Ages 9-12; when Grove Street gets its first black family, Winnie is a welcoming party of one.)
• ? The Bully of Barkham Street.
• ? The Rag Coat
• ?? _Sir Cedric_ by Roy Gerrard, in which the villian, Sir Ned, is a bully, and is called such by the text.
• ?? The Secret of Gumbo Grove, in which a "bully" named "Big Boy (a girl) figures large in the life of Raisin Stackhouse.
• Adamson, Jean and Gareth: Topsy and Tim and the Bully
• Berenstain, Stan & Jan. The Berenstain Bears and the Bully.
• Blume, Judy. Blubber. (Ages 9-12; Jill goes along with the rest of the fifth-grade class in tormenting a classmate and then finds out what it's like when she, too, becomes a target.
• Bottner, Barbara: Bootsie Barker Bites
• Byars, Betsy: The Eighteenth Emergency
• Capote, Truman. The Thanksgiving Visitor. (All ages; a boy recalls his life with an elderly relative in rural Alabama in the 1930s and the lesson she taught him one Thanksgiving Day about dealing with a bully from school.)
• Carlson, ? How to Lose All Your Friends.
• Carlson, Nancy. Arnie and the Bully.
• Carlson, Nancy. Loud Mouth George and the Sixth Grade Bully.
• Carrick, Carol. Some Friend (Ages 9-12; Mike has always been a little in awe of his self-assertive friend Rob, but one day, when pushed too far, Mike realizes he will have to take a stand of his own or lose self-respect.)
• Carrick, Carol. Stay away from Simon. (Ages 4-8; Lucy and her younger brother examine their feelings about a mentally handicapped boy they both fear when he follows them home one snowy day.)
• Chambers, Aidan Present Takers (1984) Lucy is tormented by class bullies who demand that she bring them gifts.
• Cleary, Beverly. Dear Mr. Henshaw. (Ages 9-12; in his letters to his favorite author, ten-year-old Leigh reveals his problems in coping with his parents' divorce, being the new boy in school, and generally finding his own place in the world.)
• Cohen, M. Starring First Grade.
• Cosby, Bill. Little Bill series.
• Cosby, Bill. The Meanest Thing to Say. (Little Bill series; ages 4-8; Little Bill wonders how he can still be a nice guy when he plays a game where the only way to win is by being mean.)
• Crews, Linda Illustrated by: Robinson, Charles Nekomah Creek (1991) Nine-year-old Robby loves his noisy and somewhat unconventional family, but unwanted attention from a counselor and a bully at school makes him self-conscious about just how his family might look to others.
• Davis, Gibbs Camp Sink or Swim illustrated by Abby Carter
• De Paola, Tomie. Oliver Button Is a Sissy.
• Duvoisen, ? Our Veronica.
• Elliott, Michele: The Bullies Meet the Willow Street Kids
• Estes, Eleanor The Hundred Dresses. (Wanda, a Polish immigrant, wants nothing more than to be liked and accepted in a strange country. That's why she tells her classmates tales of her "hundred dresses, all lined up in a row in my closet." Her classmates think this is hilarious, and are frequently asking her about her hundred dresses. Only when she is gone do they realize how much damage they actually did.)
• Farmer, Penelope "Penelope"
• Farmer, Penelope also wrote "The Summer Birds", a wonderful fantasy about flying. At the beginning, Emma is bullying Bobby, but they develop a friendship in the course of their adventures.
• Fenner, Carol. Randall's Wall. (Ages 9-12; artistically talented but socioeconomically underprivileged, a fifth-grade boy has built a wall of defense to protect himself from the pain of human relationships--a wall which begins to crumble when a dynamic and compassionate classmate decides to interfere in his life.)
• Fine, Anne: The Tulip Touch
• Fitzhugh, Louise. Harriet the Spy. (Ages 9-12; Harriet M. Welsch is determined to grow up and be a famous author. In the meantime, she practices by following a regular spy route each day and writing down everything she sees in her secret notebook. Then one morning, Harriet's life is turned upside down. Her classmates find her spy notebook and read it out loud! Harriet's in big trouble. The other sixth-graders are stealing her tomato sandwiches, forming a spy-catcher club, and writing notes of their own -- all about Harriet!)
• Fox, Paula. Monkey Island. (YA - homeless; Fox has written a quietly terrifying, wholly compelling novel about the urban homeless, filtered through the experience of an 11-year-old boy. Clear-eyed and unblinking as ever, she shows us the grit, misery and despair of the homeless, along with occasional qualified, but nonetheless powerful redemptive moments.)
• Giff, P.R. Happy Birthday Ronald Morgan.
• Giff, Patricia Reilly. Love, From the 5th-Grade Celebrity. (Ages 9-12; Casey can't wait for the new school year since she's sure she'll be elected class president and her friend Tracy will be moving to her town. But when Tracy wins the election and steals her friends, Casey begins to wish her friend had never come to town.)
• Godden, Rumer: The Diddakoi
• Greenwald, Sheila. Valentine Rosy. (Ages 9-12; out of print)
• Guy, Rosa: The Friends
• Hahn, Mary Downing Stepping on the Cracks (1991)In 1944, while her brother is overseas fighting in WWII, eleven-year-old Margaret gets a new view of the school bully, Gordy, when she finds him hiding his own brother, an army deserter, and decides to help him.
• Hahn, Mary Downing. Daphne's Book. (Ages 9-12; Jessica is a wreak when she finds herself wound up with Daphne the strangest girl in the class as her Write A Book Contest partner.)
• Hahn, Mary Downing. Stepping on Cracks. (Ages 9-12; Margaret and her best friend Elizabeth both have brothers fighting the war in Europe. The girls themselves are fighting on a different front--at home, against the class bully, Gordy. When he grows bolder than ever, Margaret allows Elizabeth to talk her into a daring plan to get even.)
• Hautzig, Deborah. Why Are You So Mean to Me?
• Henkes, Kevin. Chrysanthemum.
• Howe, James. Pinky and Rex and the Bully, illustrated by Melissa Sweet
• Hughes, Thomas 19th-century novel, "Tom Brown's Schooldays".
• James, Mary. Shoebag. (Ages 9-12; the story of a happy young cockroach named Shoebag, who awakens one morning to find that he has been transformed into a little boy. Adopted by the Biddle family, Shoebag changes the lives of all he meets.)
• Keats, Ezra Jack Illustrated by: Keats, Ezra Jack Goggles ! (1969) Archie and Peter find a pair of goggles and must protect them from neighborhood bullies.
• Kemp, Gene: Gowie Corby Plays Chicken
• Kennemore, Tim: The Middle of the Sandwich
• Laird, Elizabeth: Secret Friends
• Lamorisse, Albert Red Balloon (1957) A lonely boy named Pascal makes a friend in a magical red balloon, and they prove to be excellent friends to each other. (Bullies try to take the balloon away, then kill it.)
• Lester, Helen. Hooway for Wodney Wat
• Leverich, Kathleen. Best enemies. (1989) (Best enemies again (1991) & Best enemies forever (1995)) All published by Greenwillow and with Walter Lorraine's wonderful illustrations for his spouse's books. Priscilla's nemesis Felicity is a very particular (and familiar) kind of bully. She bullies with wiles and words rather than with fists. Lighthearted but ringing true.
• Lionni, Leo Illustrated by: Lionni, Leo Swimmy (1963) After losing his school, Swimmy explores the ocean and builds a new school. (The bigger fish may be called bullies.)
• Lisle, Janet. Afternoon of the Elves. (Ages 9-12; as Hillary works in the miniature village, allegedly built by elves, in Sara-Kate's backyard, she becomes more and more curious about Sara-Kate's real life inside her big, gloomy house with her mysterious, silent mother.)
• Lord, Bette Bao. In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson. (Ages 7-12.; 5he story of Shirley Temple Wong who, with her family, leaves her native, ancestral home in China and sails off to a new life in Brooklyn. It is an enormous adjustment for Shirley who must learn not only a new language but an entirely new way of life. Making friends in this strange new world is very difficult for Shirley, until she discovers baseball, the Brooklyn Dodgers and a wonderful hero and role-model in Jackie Robinson.)
• Magorian, Michelle "A Spoonful of Jam"
• Martin, Ann: Karen's Bully
• Masters, Anthony: Bullies Don't Hurt
• Mead, Alice. Junebug
• Meddaugh, Susan. Martha Walks the Dog
• Myers, Anna. Ethan Between Us
• Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds. King of the Playground. (Ages 9-12; with his dad's help, Kevin overcomes his fear of the "King of the Playground" who has threatened to tie him to the slide, put him in a deep hole, or put him in a cage with bears.)
• Needle, Jan: The Bully
• Nickle, John. The Ant Bully
• Nixon, Joan Lowery. Aggie's Home
• Paterson, Katherine. Bridge to Terabithia. (Ages 9-12; the life of a ten-year-old boy in rural Virginia expands when he becomes friends with a newcomer who subsequently meets an untimely death trying to reach their hideaway, Terabithia, during a storm.)
• Paterson, Katherine. Flip Flop Girl. (Ages 9-12; nine-year-old Vinnie feels out of place when she, her mother, and her brother move in with Grandma after Daddy dies, until she meets a flip-flop-wearing girl named Lupe--an outsider like herself.)
• Paterson, Katherine. Great Gilly Hopkins. She picks on the boy she lives with, and in the end teaches him how to fight so others won't pick on him.
• Philbrick, Rodman. Freak the Mighty. (YA; at the beginning of eighth grade, learning disabled Max and his new friend Freak, whose birth defect has affected his body but not his brilliant mind, find that when they combine forces they make a powerful team.)
• Robinson, Barbara. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever and The Best School Year Ever. (Ages 9-12; the horrible Herdmans are modern-day outlaws and the most famous kids at Woodrow Wilson School. Their wild behavior and outrageous lies always lead to disaster, but somehow all of them continually escape blame. Are they really horrible--or could there be some good in them? Find out the real truth about this crazy clan.)
• Sachar, Louis. The Boy Who Lost his Face. (YA-profanity; "Though Danny Ballinger reluctantly goes along with a group of boys who cruelly harrass an elderly woman, he's the one she singles out to put a curse on. Danny doesn't believe in hexes, but there's no denying that after the incident, his life takes a nose dive."--Booklist.)
• Sachs, Marilyn. Veronica Ganz (from the bully's point of view).
• Sachs, Marilyn. The Bears' House. (Ages 9-12; every child has had problems that they think they cannot handle. In this book, we live the struggle of a young girl just trying to make it in her world. She doesn't want to see her family split up, but in order to keep it together, she has to dodge reality and teachers alike. To escape from her problems, she creates a family for herself in the dolls that her teacher has brought in with her doll house. By creating this "family" her life becomes bearable for the time she is "with" them. A good book about the pain of living in a family that is not exactly like everybody else's family, and coping with reality.)
• Sadler, Marilyn. The Very Bad Bunny.
• Shreve, Susan. Joshua T. Bates in Trouble Again
• Simeon, Lorraine: Stop That: An Anti-Bullying Rap
• Snyder, Zilpha K. Libby on Wednesday. (Ages 9-12; Libby hates school. Before this year she was tutored at home by her eccentric relatives. But now her mother feels she should become more "socialized." Now Libby is stuck with four kids she doesn't like in a writer's club that meets every week. Can the five of them accept each other, and even become friends?)
• Spinelli, Jerry. <Wringer> seems to me to be a powerful story about bullies and about a child's struggle with "going along" or not.
• Spinelli, Jerry. Fourth Grade Rats. (Ages 9-12; Suds learns that his best friend is wrong. You don't have to be a tough guy, a "rat," to be a grown up fourth grader.)
• Spinelli, Jerry. Maniac Magee. (Ages 9-12; Maniac Magee is a folk story about a boy, a very excitable boy. One that can outrun dogs, hit a home run off the best pitcher in the neighborhood, tie a knot no one can undo. "Kid's gotta be a maniac," is what the folks in Two Mills say. It's also the story of how this boy, Jeffrey Lionel "Maniac" Magee, confronts racism in a small town, tries to find a home where there is none and attempts to soothe tensions between rival factions on the tough side of town. Presented as a folk tale, it's the stuff of storytelling.)
• St. John, Liza. Abby's Wish. (Abby the rabbit wishes she had a friend, as long as it's not funny-looking Horrible Hare.
• Stolz, Mary: A Dog on Barkham Street; The Bully of Barkham Street
• Stones, Rosemary: No More Bullying
• Viorst, Judith. I'll Fix Anthony.
• Voigt, Cynthia. Bad Girls. (Ages 9-12; sharing a common goal to be the meanest kids in their class, Margalo andMikey conspire to turn their fifth-grade class into a minefield and fearlessly confront anyone who would stand in their way.)
• Walters, Celeste. The killing of Mudeye is a chilling book detailing the life of a bullied child.
• Wells, Rosemary Illustrated by: Wells, Rosemary Hazel's Amazing Mother (1985) When Hazel and her beloved doll Eleanor are set upon by bullies, Hazel's
• Wilson, Jacqueline: Bad Girls
• Yvonne Coppard: Bully
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