By Alexis O'Neill
Mean Jean rules the whole playground until a tiny new girl, too new to know the rules, walks up and asks her to jump rope.
Mean Jean is the boss of the whole playground. Nobody bounces a ball, kicks a ball, or slips down the slide before she does, and anyone who tries gets hammered, slammed, and kitz-kajammered. Everyone has learned to wait their turn behind her. Then along comes Katie Sue, brand new, about the size of a lunchbox, and clueless about the rules. She swings first. She laughs loudest. When Mean Jean storms over for the reckoning, Katie Sue just digs a jump rope out of her backpack and asks if she wants to play. No one has ever asked Mean Jean to play anything before, and that one question is the whole turn of the book.
A lot of bullying books hand a child two options, tell a grown-up or walk away, and neither one gives them much to picture. This one gives them a picture. Katie Sue doesn't fight Mean Jean and she doesn't run; she offers her a rope and asks her to play, and it works because nobody ever thought to try. The other thing carrying it is the sound. The rhymes stomp and bounce, so your child will want it read again right away, and the idea about the loud one on the playground maybe being lonely goes in a few more times without anyone calling it a lesson.