Blue Wolf Reviews

Tag: bully

  • A Boy, his Bear and a Bully

    A Boy, his Bear and a Bully

    The front cover of A Boy, His Bear and a Bully shows a small boy bending over his teddy. Behind him looms a menacing figure of a much larger boy complete with skull and crossbones on his shirt. This sets the tone for the story. Open the cover and the end pages are black, with some scary images.

    The story begins on a cheerful note, showing Scott and his bear, Buttons. They are off to school. Buttons helps Scott to feel brave. Scott’s friend Rosie is shy, and both are afraid of Duncan. Duncan is just mean. He tears paintings and teases the children. Oh dear! Buttons has gone missing, and Scott is worried about him. What will it take for Scott to face Duncan and ask for his teddy? Well, perhaps the dress up day at school will help.

    Scott is not sure what it will take to “Find his brave.” For many children this becomes an issue. Finding the right words to use and the confidence to face up to a bully is hard. For Scott, wearing a dinosaur costume helped. He was able to shout, “Stop Duncan, I don’t like it!” With a little teacher intervention, the situation was saved.

    Action must be taken in situations like A Boy, His Bear and a Bully. The more discussions we have about unfriendly behaviour with children, the more they will be able to assess a situation and behave appropriately. Bullying is not acceptable at any age.

  • Cardboard Cowboys

    Cardboard Cowboys

    He is a boy on the edge of adulthood struggling to fit into a world that only sees perfection: He is a man who been damaged by life living down by the canal in a cardboard, but very tidy, home. 

    Lenny is struggling to fit into his new school; he is fat, bad at sport, loves English, poetry and art. He has a love of music and sings in his bedroom in front of the mirror. Trouble has come to Lenny’s family; his beloved brother Frankie has gone away, not to return home for many months. His mother is not coping; his father is a long haul truck driver. Basically none of them are coping with the dramatic changes in their lives.

    Bruce lives down by the canal in a cardboard shanty, well-hidden on the bank, not happy to draw attention to himself. Lenny frequently skips school when things get to tough. He throws a can in the canal and draws Bruce’s ire about littering and so a tentative friendship beings to build: two misfits both trying to find a place in a world that is hard, relentless and difficult.

    The stress of his home life, issues at school and a desire to find out just what Frankie really thinks, sees Lenny convince Bruce to come with him on a road trip to visit Frankie. Bruce is at first reluctant, eventually agreeing to come with him as Lenny is determined to go, with or without his friend.

    In this charming, funny, heart-felt work from Brian Conaghan, Cardboard Cowboys, a first in this mid-range reader category for this award winning writer, he takes a look at the issues of modern society, when you simply do not fit, the real strength and love of friendship and the changes that can be made when you take a chance and begin to believe in yourself.

    An epic road trip, a learning curve for Lenny, a liberation for Bruce and a realisation for Lenny’s family, all come together  to create a story young readers will easily relate to while addressing the heinousness of bullying behaviour and the power of love and friendship.

  • Witness

    Witness

    Louise Milligan is no stranger to the Courts of Law; as a journalist she was for a time a court reporter, then she did a Law course, developing her investigative skills. Some of the cases she followed closely had verdicts passed which were unfathomable. Gradually as she delved deeper into the cases, she found that the victims had been bullied atrociously by the defence lawyer.

    A young eighteen-year-old innocent girl celebrated her birthday with a girlfriend. They finished up in a nightclub having had much to drink. The nightclub owner’s son told her he would show her the VIP area but took her out into a lane and raped her. This was a life changing event for the girl, who reported the act to the Police. When the case came to court, the girl told and retold the prosecuting lawyer what had happened. His bullying and harassing treatment of her ensured her humiliation and degradation would never be forgotten. The perpetrator was found not guilty as he said he hadn’t heard her say no!

    With a view to changing the treatment of witnesses, Louise has researched other cases and found similar tactics used on confused, overwhelmed and unsupported people. But then she was called as a witness with information about Cardinal Pell. She had been told, by a victim, exactly what had happened to him. Louise took the stand nervously but confidently and was cross examined for hours. .” A court is required to disallow improper questions put to a witness,” but during that day Louise could not think of one question that was not asked in an insulting or belittling tone. To destroy the credibility of the witness would knock the case out at committal stage. The actual court transcript is given here, and it is outrageous!

    In the five years Louise has taken to compile Witness, she has honed it into an eminently readable piece. It is shameful, that in our time witnesses and victims are still treated with so little regard. This is a social issue which needs strong action now. Pass this book around; better still give everyone a copy for Christmas, as everyone should be aware of these issues.

  • Powman 2 Discover The Strength Within

    Powman 2 Discover The Strength Within

    School is recently returned from the summer break, with children settling into the new classes, schools and routines. For many the transition is easy, but for a few, the going is not so great as Francis Claire Tabain or Frankie to her friends, discovered when she had to begin at the Diamond Karate Academy for bright and talented athletes.

    Once the excitement settled, as she had won a scholarship to this prestigious school, which was awesome, right, she realised, she was to be a Boarder, which meant separation from her BFF Gemma and her family, for the whole time of the first term. Oh Boy, should she ever have read the fine print!

    Frankie begins her new school life with a positive feeling which soon ends with her becoming the victim of some terrible smash-lighting and bullying by some of the girls in her class. What is she to do?

    The more she tries to fit in the worse things seem to get, until she decides to enlist the help of her famous cousin Dave POW Tabain and his POW plan. POW stands for Power of Words and a few other things, just in case you need to use Dave’s POW plan.

    Fighting back against bullying is never easy to do, as all you ever want to do is fit in, make friends and enjoy life. In this very classy look at bullying and fighting back, Dave shows Frankie a good plan to use to get her back into fighting condition, karate that is, once again.

    Frankie also realises, once she understands what has been happening to her, that while the other girls have been shunning and tormenting her, she has put her energy into working harder, becoming better at her grades and far, far better at her Karate.

    Perhaps, now that she is refocusing it is far easier for Frankie to understand the bullying behaviour is not about her, but about how the bully feels and thinks about themselves.

    POW man Discover the Strength Within, along with suitable cartoons from Shane Ogilvie, sets out exactly what bullying behaviour can be like, while showing the way out of the stress and distress this can cause, and is completely suitable, actually 100% suitable, for children of all ages.

  • Artie and the Grime Wave

    Artie and the Grime Wave

    Artie and Bumshoe (not his real name of course!) somehow seem to have managed to get themselves involved with a particularly nasty group of criminals who, it appears, will stop at nothing to steal just about anything and everything, if there is some sort of money to be made at the end of the deal.

    In Arties’ school there is the most terrible bully, Nate, and his even more terrible mate Wart, who just want to make poor Artie’s life a complete misery and that is not all that hard to do as, since Artie’s Dad, who was a trampoline artist died, his Mum won’t get out of bed, won’t get dressed and Artie’s Sister Lola is the boss in the house; and she is none too nice about that either.

    So Poor Artie struggles to get proper shoes, eat proper food and even makes not having a bath last for days on end, when he can of course!

    But, one day while Artie and Bumshoe were running away from Nate and Wart, peddling their bikes faster and faster to what they think is a secret hidden cave, they discover that a gang of thieves has also found the cave and they have made it the storage place for all the stolen good that have been taken from the town. Not only are there art works, jewellery, bicycles and furniture, there is also cages and cages full of animals.

    But what to do is the question. It is not until Artie’s friend Gladys tortoise is stolen and she is deeply unhappy, the pair decide that perhaps the thieves might have  something to do with his disappearance and that they really should do something to get it back.

     That is when a rollicking good adventure begins; Aunty-boys, the weirdest woman in town and her dog Macaroni, the terrible, terrible Mayor Grime, who just happens to be Nate’s Dad, the criminals Mary and Funnel-web, a Super –Snotter and the amazing Fartex 120Y, to name just a few of the people and amazing inventions to be found in this amazing adventure, as you madly turn over the pages to find out, WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.

    Funny, irreverent and totally right for the age 9-12 age group of boys who are into adventure, farting, snot, fun and mayhem, with the message that bullying is not all right and crime and being dishonest most certainly always comes to a very, very, sticky, messy, BAD END.