Picture Book Blog #1

Title: "Bully"
Written By and Illustrated By: Laura Vaccaro Seeger
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Copyright: 2013
Number of Pages: 30
Genre: Picture

    Bully by Laura Vaccaro Seeger is a very simple book with a straight to the point message. It starts out by showing a picture of a little bull who is sad because he gets told to go away by a bigger bull. The book goes on to show the little bull walking along afterward and rudely turning away friends that want to play with him. The underlying meaning that is conveyed is about the ripple effect a bully can have.

    The illustrations are really the voice of the book. As you flip through the book, the pages show the bull getting bigger and bigger for each time he is rude to his friends. This signifies that the little bull is now turning into the big bull, or the "bully", that he was rejected by. Probably my favorite illustration was the one where the bull has realized what he is acting like and begins spinning round and round on the page to illustrate him shrinking back down to size and becoming a good friend again.

Grade: Kindergarten 
Content Area/ Standard: Kindness

A good way to bring the moral or standard of the story to your class would be to give each of the students a paper heart and have them decorate it according to their liking. After the hearts are personalized, have the students swap hearts so that each child has a classmate's heart. As the story is read, the children can crumple the heart a little each time the word bully is said, until at the end of the book the students have completely turned each heart into a tiny wad. Then, the teacher will explain how even if you unravel the heart it will never look the same. This can help to show the students how damaging words and can be and that we cannot take back how we act toward people.