Stories about bullies

[Viv of Ginger Pop]

In the light of recent events, I am intending to do a special feature of Blyton stories about Bullying in the Ginger Pop shop window during anti-bullying week at the end of November.

I would be very grateful for any suggestions of which stories should be included, and which current book it can be found in (if you know it).

with thanks

Viv

[Anita Bensoussane]

Hi Viv,

There are lots of stories about bullies in the Mr. Pink-Whistle books. The ones I remember best are in Mr. Pink-Whistle's Party - "Mr. Pink-Whistle Has Some Fun!", "Mr. Pink-Whistle Laughs!" and "Mr. Pink-Whistle's Little Trick." I always loved these stories - in my head I would cheer Mr. Pink-Whistle on as he gave the bullies a taste of their own medicine. There are similar stories in the other Mr. Pink-Whistle books as well. The only misgiving I have is that, as far as I can remember, all the bullies are boys.

Bullying also features prominently in The Naughtiest Girl Again, when Robert bullies the younger pupils. They are too frightened to report him at first but eventually things come to a head. What is interesting is that the school looks into Robert's background to try to understand why he became a bully.

Anita

[Moonraker]

Much of the bullying is carried out by adults. The treatment of Nobby, for example, by Lou and Tiger Dan; I guess this is not what you are really referring to, Viv, as this really constitutes child abuse.
There is much 'psychological' bullying; for example Angela's treatment of junior girls at St Clare's.

[tik]

On page #95 of "Shadow the Sheep-Dog" (first Australian edition c-1948) there is a nice Lucy Gee picture of little Johnny being bashed up by a bully of the first order called Tom.
Very fortunately Shadow (in the role of "Timmy") dealt out justice to the assaulter!

[booklover]

I agree with Anita's comments that the Mr Pink-Whistle series is a good place to start to see bullies learning some valuable lessons - a very good story covering two chapters is called "The Mean Little Boy" and "Wilfrid Has a Good Many Shocks" from The Adventures of Mr Pink-Whistle. Others are "Mr Pink-Whistle and the Cowards" and "Mr Pink-Whistle Goes to School", both from Mr Pink-Whistle Interferes.

Other short stories are "The Little Bully" from Chimney Corner Stories; and "You're a Bully" from Stories for You, both from Dean's "Rewards" series.

Often the bullies in Enid Blyton's stories are cruel or neglectful to animals. Again with Mr Pink-Whistle, an example is "The Forgotten Rabbits" from The Adventures of Mr Pink-Whistle. Other short stories are "The Story of Lucky" from Stories for Bedtime (Dean); and "The Little Brown Duck" and "The Boy Who Pulled Tails" from Round the Clock Stories" (Dean).

As Anita observes, the bullies are almost always boys, although in "The Unkind Children" also from Chimney Corner Stories, we see a brother and sister throwing stones at animals. (That was the only story I could find where a girl was the wrongdoer.)

And the stories can come up quite unexpectedly - such as "The Big Naughty Boy" from Billy-Bob Tales, where we see Wags the dog give a bully his just deserts!

[Kirrin]

I think a common occurance is that the bullys make the victims feel it is in someway thier fault in the first place-which of course is not true.
It makes the victim feel he/she cant tell on the bully.
Victims should always tell people wether its physical or verbal or both.

[tik]

Female of the species: "Bad-tempered Bessie" was a really nasty little bully.