Coping with Bullying

June 1, 2011

Gr 4-7-These titles will do little to ease the distress of struggling kids, and their potential as resources for school reports is undermined by a lack of citations. Absent Parents discusses a broad range of situations that might separate children from their parents: work, military service, addiction, prison, divorce, severe illness. Bullying, the title with the most potential, breaks down the different types of bullying-verbal, physical, cell phone, and Internet-and suggests methods for overcoming them. Domestic Violence, marred by typos, covers violence between parents and violence inflicted on children, as well as altered living arrangements and foster care. All of the books give generic, scripted advice, which is repeated throughout instead of explained. A lack of personal stories, coupled with staged photos, detaches readers from the subject matter. One bright spot, found in Domestic Violence and Bullying, is the shared experiences and photos of celebrities who have dealt with these issues. Current titles on domestic violence and absent parents are hard to come by, yet affected kids will not be helped by these volumes. Alternatively, Ouisie Shapiro's Bullying and Me (Albert Whitman, 2010) captures personal experiences, and Debbie Fox's Good-Bye Bully Machine (Free Spirit, 2009) explains the topic in child-friendly language.-Richelle Roth, Boone County Public Library, KY

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