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B IS FOR . . .

baby, being a

We’ve all been there – some more recently than others. See our lists below.

THE TEN BEST BOOKS FOR BABIES

The Baby’s Catalogue ALLAN AHLBERG, ILLUSTRATED BY JANET AHLBERG

Each Peach Pear Plum ALLAN AHLBERG, ILLUSTRATED BY JANET AHLBERG

Forever EMMA DODD

Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes MEM FOX, ILLUSTRATED BY HELEN OXENBURY

Mother Goose KATE GREENAWAY

Peek-a-Who? NINA LADEN

Faces JO LODGE

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? BILL MARTIN JR, ILLUSTRATED BY ERIC CARLE

Tickle Tickle HELEN OXENBURY

On the Night You Were Born NANCY TILLMAN

THE TEN BEST PICTURE BOOKS FOR RHYTHM AND RHYME

The Witch with an Itch HELEN BAUGH, ILLUSTRATED BY DEBORAH ALLWRIGHT

Mister Magnolia QUENTIN BLAKE

Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed EILEEN CHRISTELOW

Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy LYNLEY DODD

The Snail and the Whale JULIA DONALDSON, ILLUSTRATED BY AXEL SCHEFFLER

Oh, No! CANDACE FLEMING, ILLUSTRATED BY ERIC ROHMANN

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom BILL MARTIN JR AND JOHN ARCHAMBAULT, ILLUSTRATED BY LOIS EHLERT

Little Rabbit Foo Foo MICHAEL ROSEN, ILLUSTRATED BY ARTHUR ROBINS

Sing a Song of Bottoms JEANNE WILLIS, ILLUSTRATED BY ADAM STOWER

Green Eggs and Ham DR SEUSS

THE TEN BEST TOUCHY-FEELY BOOKS

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly PAM ADAMS

Fuzzy Fuzzy Fuzzy! SANDRA BOYNTON

The Very Hungry Caterpillar ERIC CARLE

Feely Bugs DAVID A CARTER

In My Tree SARA GILLINGHAM AND LORENA SIMINOVICH

I Love to Eat AMELIE GRAUX

Pat the Bunny DOROTHY KUNHARDT

Animal Kisses BARNEY SALTZBERG

Wet Pet, Dry Pet, Your Pet, My Pet DR SEUSS

That’s Not My Puppy FIONA WATT, ILLUSTRATED BY RACHEL WELLS

SEE ALSO: small, being • understood, not being

baby talk

SEE: grow up, not wanting to • small, feeling

babysitter, not liking your

Sometimes a bad babysitter just needs a mentor or two. Leave a stack of these stories around the house and ask the babysitter to read them aloud to the kids. The children will thank you for it.

THE TEN BEST BABYSITTERS IN THE BUSINESS

Benjamin McFadden and the Robot Babysitter TIMOTHY BUSH

Good Dog, Carl ALEXANDRA DAY

Be Good, Gordon ANGELA MCALLISTER, ILLUSTRATED BY TIM ARCHBOLD

How to Babysit a Grandma JEAN REAGAN, ILLUSTRATED BY LEE WILDISH

No Babysitters Allowed AMBER STEWART, ILLUSTRATED BY LAURA RANKIN

Kristy’s Great Idea ANN M MARTIN

Mrs Noodlekugel DANIEL PINKWATER, ILLUSTRATED BY ADAM STOWER

Mary Poppins PL TRAVERS

The Mysterious Howling (The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place) MARYROSE WOOD, ILLUSTRATED BY JON KLASSEN

The Manny Files CHRISTIAN BURCH

bad loser, being a

SEE: loser, being a bad

bargaining, endless

Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! MO WILLEMS

With some grown-ups, a ‘no’ is final. But with others there’s a small chink of doubt in the ‘no’, and if a child is quick about it (and they always are) they’ll stick the end of a chisel into this chink and start wiggling until the ‘no’ gives way. If this sounds familiar, pull out Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, one of the first books to bring the child into the story – and make them the responsible one. The experience will change them forever.

When the bus driver asks the reader to keep an eye on his bus while he goes away – and not, on any account, to let the pigeon drive it – no child, fluffed up with self-importance as they by now will be, can resist. The pigeon gets straight to the point. ‘Hey, can I drive the bus?’ he asks, innocent as you please. When the child says ‘no’, the wily pigeon deploys every tactic in The Children’s Handbook of Manipulation¹ to get an affirmative answer, from compliance-through-distraction (‘Hey, I’ve got an idea. Let’s play “Drive the bus!”’) to bribery (‘I’ll be your best friend!’) and emotional blackmail (‘I have dreams, you know!’). Never was a simply drawn pigeon (round head, round eye, two stick legs) more expressive than when Willems lowers the shutter of the pigeon’s eyelid to fit a simmering, tight-lipped ‘Fine.’ Most children find this book so absolutely hilarious that any attempts at bargaining thereafter will quickly slide into a parody of the bargaining pigeon – and become a lovely, happy shambles.

SEE ALSO: adolescence

bath, not wanting to have a

I Don’t Want to Have a Bath! JULIE SYKES, ILLUSTRATED BY TIM WARNES

The Pigeon Needs a Bath! MO WILLEMS

Bathwater’s Hot SHIRLEY HUGHES

Every parent should keep a clutch of nakedly pro-bathing propaganda under the bathroom sink for when their sticky infant, smeared with jam, glue, sand, glitter, orange juice and beetroot purée needs convincing that having a dunk in a bathtub is a good idea. A stalwart staple is I Don’t Want to Have a Bath! from the appealing and brightly illustrated Little Tiger series, in which the mischievous bundle of orange-and-black stripes cavorts with each of his animal friends in turn, getting muckier and muckier in the process. It’s quite plain to the little tiger that being dirty is synonymous with having fun – and who would want to put an end to that? And then, thankfully, he meets an animal who won’t play with him unless he’s clean . . . Soap dodgers take note! The Pigeon Needs a Bath!, featuring the argumentative pigeon of Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! fame (see: bargaining, endless), is guaranteed to contain more objections to bathing than your recalcitrant toddler could ever come up with by themselves, and effectively makes them all redundant. And the enticing illustrations in Bathwater’s Hot make the idea of being wrapped in a warm, fluffy towel at the end impossible to resist.

CURE FOR GROWN-UPS

The Witches ROALD DAHL, ILLUSTRATED BY QUENTIN BLAKE

Clever-clogs kids of chapter-book age will, of course, counter your request that they take a bath with the argument that, in Norway witches can smell a clean child more easily than a dirty one – and that regular baths put you at greater risk of being ‘squelched’. (And, as you know, witches must squelch at least one child per week if they’re to avoid getting grumpy.) Rather than suffer the lecture, keep your copy of this terrifying but brilliant story under lock and key – and only bring it out once the boy narrator and his cigar-smoking grandmother have finished turning every witch in the world into a mouse.

SEE ALSO: body odour • hands, not wanting to wash your • swim, inability to • told, never doing what you’re

beards, horror of

The Runaway Beard DAVID SCHILLER, ILLUSTRATED BY MARC ROSENTHAL

Unless they have been raised in close proximity to one, small children frequently burst into tears at the sight of a beard. A razor is one way of dealing with it. Another is to bring out this surreal board book, beards, horror of which comes complete with fake beard with which, in turn, to scare the hirsute invader off.

The beard in the story – a luxuriant, fulsome, black one – has for years been happily settled on the lower half of Dad’s face. But when Dad – deliciously drawn in the style of Popeye – decides to shave it off, the beard makes a last-minute run for it, leaping off his face and landing, alarmingly, on the face of the baby. When Mum chases it away with her broom, the beard tries in vain to find a new place to settle – even at one point attaching itself to a reproduction of the Mona Lisa. And then the children’s bald uncle walks through their door . . . Nothing that is shown to be so ludicrous can possibly hold menace again.

SEE ALSO: grannies, having to kiss • nightmares

beastly, being

Horton Hears a Who! DR SEUSS

Rotten Island WILLIAM STEIG

If you’re trying to convert a child inclined to be beastly into one that’s sweet and loving, give them a dose of Horton, Dr Seuss’s empathetic elephant.² Horton is enjoying a splash in a cool jungle pool when he hears a noise and, in the absence of any other suitable source, concludes that it must have come from someone living on a speck of dust, invisible to the naked elephant eye. The other jungle animals think he’s gone completely nuts when he saves the speck from the water; but for Horton, this is the start of a great deal of worrying about this small ‘Who’ – who, it turns out, is not just one person but an entire community of ‘Whos’, complete with Who mayor. Once the beastly child has glimpsed the detailed community of Whos, hard at work trying to patch up their battered planet after a careless bird let it drop mid-flight, they, too, will start to worry about the Whos and, by extension, others (see: worrying). As Horton says, ‘After all,/A person’s a person. No matter how small.’

If this fails to inspire compassion, allow your out-and-out beast to sport with their own kind with Rotten Island, psychedelic home to a vile bunch of critters with extra limbs and unpleasant personalities. There’s nothing on Rotten Island but bad weather and violent volcanoes – all drawn in satisfyingly scratchy outlines and sloshed with garish colours. Until, that is, a flower dares to show its pretty face. A joyous celebration of ghastliness running amok, this book will satisfy the demand for beastliness in your household – and maybe even wear it out.

SEE ALSO: animals, being unkind to • contrary, being • manners, bad • naughtiness • share, inability to • sibling rivalry • tantrums • told, never doing what you’re

bed, fear of what’s under the

Bedtime for Monsters ED VERE

Unidentified creaks, wardrobe doors left ajar and, of course, that dark space beneath the bed . . . Turn the fear on its head with Bedtime for Monsters, which first acknowledges the fear (‘Supposing there are monsters . . .’), then looks it square in the face (‘He’s coming to find you – RIGHT NOW!’). Finally . . . well, who can be scared of a monster, however big and green, going ‘Ring a Ding Ding’ on his bicycle?

SEE ALSO: anxiety • dark, scared of the • scared, being

bed, having to stay in

Marianne Dreams CATHERINE STORR

Every bedridden child needs a copy of Marianne Dreams, capturing as it does so perfectly the associated feeling of being alone in a slightly unreal other world, marooned from family life. We never know exactly what’s wrong with Marianne when, on her tenth birthday, she develops a high fever and has to go to bed. She’s both ‘horrified and fascinated’ when the days become weeks. She’s visited each day by Miss Chesterfield, a governess, who tells her about the other children she teaches in their own homes, including Mark, who is ill with polio. But what really helps pass the time is the stubby pencil she finds in her great-grandmother’s old sewing box, which brings whatever she draws to life in her dreams.

The first time it happens, Marianne dreams she’s walking across a lonely prairie – when there, before her, is the house she drew earlier with the pencil. It’s a simple house with a square façade, four windows and a door. She tries to get in – but there’s no handle, and no knocker. Two days later, she picks up her drawing again. This time she adds a knocker – and a boy’s face at the window; and the next time she visits the house in her dreams, she meets the boy as well.

At times the story that follows feels like the hallucinations of someone slipping in and out of a fever. The boy in the house has polio, and is called Mark – just like Miss Chesterfield’s student. He’s also as sulky and irritable about being stuck in bed as Marianne is herself. Soon Marianne is so preoccupied with getting Mark back on his feet that she stops grumbling about how long it’s taking her to get back on hers. This story shows a child how the mind can travel to surprising places, even if the body can’t. And that one way to get better might be to focus on someone – or something – other than themselves.

SEE ALSO: bored, being • cheering up, needing • loneliness • rainy day

bed, not wanting to go to

It’s hard to go to bed when it’s still light outside and you’ve got energy left to burn – especially when other people in the house are still up. Make the duvet seem more appealing with a story that shows other lively creatures winding down.

THE TEN BEST BOOKS FOR TEMPTING A CHILD TO BED

The Going to Bed Book SANDRA BOYNTON

I Am Not Sleepy and I Will Not Go to Bed (Charlie and Lola) LAUREN CHILD

The Boy Who Wouldn’t Go to Bed HELEN COOPER

Night Cars TEDDY JAM, ILLUSTRATED BY ERIC BEDDOWS

I’ll See You in the Morning MIKE JOLLEY, ILLUSTRATED BY MIQUE MORIUCHI

It’s Time to Sleep, My Love ERIC METAXAS, ILLUSTRATED BY NANCY TILLMAN

I Like it When . . . MARY MURPHY

Good Night, Gorilla PEGGY RATHMANN

I Don’t Want to Go to Bed! JULIE SYKES, ILLUSTRATED BY TIM WARNES

Sleep Tight, Little Bear MARTIN WADDELL, ILLUSTRATED BY BARBARA FIRTH

SEE ALSO: naughtiness • nightmares • over-tired, being • sleep, unable to get to • told, never doing what you’re

bed, wanting to go to before someone else

Goodnight Already! JORY JOHN, ILLUSTRATED BY BENJI DAVIES

Being desperate for bed when your friends or family are all revved up and raring to party can be painful, whether you’re a toddler, a teen or, frankly, a grown-up. No one likes to miss out or be seen as a party-pooper. But no one likes being tortured either; and when the pressure to stay up becomes too hard to bear for someone in your household, bring out Goodnight Already!, the story of a sleepy bear and his way-too-bright-eyed duck neighbour, zinging on caffeine and in need of some attention. Bear’s pain is written in the bags beneath his eyes – and, not surprisingly, he becomes somewhat grouchy after a while. We, too, want to strangle and indeed roast the duck for being so insensitive and selfish, especially when the bear’s head and shoulders start to droop. All of which will persuade the sleepyhead near you that it’s OK to be tired before everyone else and to go to bed without further ado.

SEE ALSO: alone, wanting to be left • over-tired, being • sibling rivalry • stand up for yourself, not feeling able to

bed, wetting the

Do Little Mermaids Wet Their Beds? JEANNE WILLIS, ILLUSTRATED BY PENELOPE JOSSEN

Max Archer, Kid Detective: The Case of the Wet Bed HOWARD J BENNETT, ILLUSTRATED BY SPIKE GERRELL

Goodnight, Mister Tom MICHELLE MAGORIAN

For the child just beginning to go nappy-free, waking up with wet sheets now and then is inevitable. As long as there’s a good-tempered grown-up in the house, a stack of spare sheets in the airing cupboard and a bottle of gin beneath the ironing board, everything is likely to be all right. Those who make a nightly habit of it will be reassured to know that the little girl in Do Little Mermaids Wet Their Beds? is a nightly bed-wetter, too – even though she can already dress herself, write her name and even ride a two-wheeled bike. She hates the horrid plastic sheet her mum puts on her bed. Just as she’s about to develop a hang-up about wetting her bed, she has a dream that makes her realise it’s no big deal and, for the first time, wakes up dry (though, to the bewilderment of her mother, wearing a soggy coat . . .).

For older bed-wetters, we prescribe Max Archer, Kid Detective – the brainchild of an American paediatrician (see: tummy ache). Max is a streetwise-yet-sensitive trilby-wearing dude in the mould of Chandler’s detective, Philip Marlowe. Having suffered from bed-wetting himself until he was eleven, Max now helps others kick the habit on a paying basis. When he takes on eight-year-old Billy as a client, Max gives him his usual spiel: these are the causes of bed-wetting, and here are some ways to help your body wake itself up if your bladder becomes too full. The snappy prose skims the embarrassment off all this talk of bodily functions, and the clear explanations and suggestions allow the child to assume responsibility for their issue themselves.

If bed-wetting persists in older children, it may be an indication of emotional upset, trauma or abuse – as it is for Willie in Goodnight, Mister Tom. A wartime evacuee, Willie arrives in the village of Little Weirwold malnourished and with his underwear sewn to his shirt. Though eight years old, he wets his bed every night and expects to be beaten for it. Tom Oakley, the elderly man who takes him in, shows great tact in his handling of the wet sheets; and as Willie discovers what it is to be treated with kindness and patience rather than hostility and suspicion, he gradually escapes the habit. Magorian writes with such hope, such positive energy and light, that one feels the real possibility that Willie will recover from the life he led with his over-zealous, religious mother and could even achieve his dream of becoming an actor one day. Sharing this encouraging story with a bed-wetting older child may help initiate discussions about what their underlying trigger may be.

Of course, for children just discovering the mixed pleasures of growing up, it may be that something else is going on . . . (see: periods; wet dreams).

SEE ALSO: abuse • baby, being a • embarrassment • trauma

bedroom, having to share your

SEE: alone, wanting to be left • share, inability to

bereavement

SEE: death of a loved one

best friend, falling out with your

Gossie & Gertie OLIVIER DUNREA

My Best, Best Friend (Charlie and Lola) LAUREN CHILD

Roller Girl VICTORIA JAMIESON

Having a best friend is a high-stakes game. Bliss while it lasts; torment when there’s a bust-up. Prepare toddlers to ride the ups and downs by introducing them to Gossie and Gertie. These two yellow goslings do everything together: splash in the rain, dive in the pond, play hide-and-seek in the daisies. They even wear the same boots (Gossie’s red, Gertie’s blue). But then one day one of them decides not to follow the other, but to go in the opposite direction . . . A lovely little board book³ for reassuring a child that even when your shadow wants to branch out, it doesn’t mean the friendship’s gone awry.

My Best, Best Friend begins with Lola and Lotta doing everything together. They swap their fruit at lunchtime, and whenever Mrs Hanson says ‘Get into pairs’, they don’t have to think twice about who to choose. But then a new girl, Evie, arrives and Mrs Hanson asks Lotta to look after her. Those downward-looking eyes of Lola’s really capture how bad it can feel to be left out for a while. Happily, she and Lotta re-establish their special connection just as Evie finds a new bestie, too.

The transition from primary to secondary school offers a child the chance to shuffle their deck of friends. But deciding where they belong can be nerve-wracking, especially for girls. Will they and their friends go girly, geeky or sports-crazy? Or will they, as many of the boys seem able to do, try to remain neutral and independent? For those left in the lurch when their old friends leap elsewhere, bring in the graphic novel Roller Girl.

Nicole and Astrid are ‘still best friends’ when the story opens, with Astrid’s impressive mum in the habit of organising an ‘Evening of Cultural Enlightenment’ for them both on Fridays – often one that takes them out of their depth. We see them snoozing at the opera, standing blank-faced before a piece of abstract art, and laughing in all the wrong places at poetry readings. But this particular night she takes them to something unexpected: the Roller Derby. The players bowl Astrid over with their punky hair, tattoos and make-up – as well as their other-worldly, streetwise names (Scrappy Go Lucky, Scald Eagle, Pandemonium) – and she signs up for Roller Derby camp on the spot. She takes it for granted that Nicole will come too, and she’s gutted when Nicole says she’s already signed up for ballet camp.

Roller-skating turns out to be much harder than it looks, and Astrid spends most of the first few days on the floor. On top of it all she has to walk home by herself, not having wanted to break the news to her mum that Nicole isn’t doing the camp with her. One day, she takes the plunge and skates home – and so begins her gradual transformation from Astrid, a girl with no particular ‘thing’ of her own except for being Nicole’s best friend, to the fit, fearless ‘Asteroid’, coasting the city streets with her new friend, Zoey. Sometimes, friendships simply run their course.

SEE ALSO: arguments, getting into • betrayal • feelings, hurt • forgive, reluctance to • friends, feeling that you have no • friends, finding it hard to make • loneliness • stand up for yourself, not feeling able to • umbrage, taking

betrayal

Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse KEVIN HENKES

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe CS LEWIS

First it’s worth checking to see if the child in question really has been betrayed – or if they just think they have. For Lilly, the mouse in Kevin Henkes’s classic picture book, it’s the person (or rodent) she adores most in the world that has betrayed her – or so she believes. Lilly thinks so highly of Mr Slinger, a dude of a teacher who winks and says ‘Howdy’ each morning, that she does everything she can to be like him. One day she comes to school wearing a pair of movie-star sunglasses, just like his, and carrying a brand new purple plastic handbag that plays a tune when opened. She knows Mr Slinger will love her accessories as much as she does. But Mr Slinger doesn’t care for the jaunty tune singing out every five minutes in class, and confiscates both glasses and bag. Furious, Lilly draws Mr Slinger on a ‘Wanted’ poster . . . The teacher handles the situation beautifully; and watching Lilly go from outrage to humility as she realises she’s the one that needs to apologise is very helpful for children who have made the same mistake.

A betrayal of a real and shocking kind lies at the heart of the The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the magical portal into the spellbinding Narnia series.⁴ Of the four siblings sent to the big house in the country to escape the Blitz,⁵ the youngest, Lucy, is the first to find her way through the fur coats and into the snowy forests of Narnia. There she meets a Faun called Mr Tumnus, who invites her for tea. None of her siblings believe her when she tells them where she’s been – after all, according to their sense of time, she’s only been gone a few minutes. So when, on her next visit, she finds that Edmund has followed her there, she’s excited and relieved. ‘The others will have to believe in Narnia now that both of us have been there. What fun it will be!’ she cries. But back in the house, Edmund – sick and guilty from eating so much of the White Witch’s Turkish Delight – claims to have no idea what she’s talking about.

This first betrayal is followed by a succession of others as, thoroughly hooked on Turkish Delight and keen to lord it over his elder brother, Peter, as King one day, Edmund becomes the evil queen’s spy. The shock of Edmund’s treachery is compounded by the contrast with Peter’s admirable loyalty. ‘We’ll still have to go and look for him,’ Peter says, as he realises the grave danger Edmund has put them all in. ‘He is our brother after all, even if he is rather a little beast.’ In Narnia, as in the real world, family and friends come first. Kids who have been betrayed will be inspired by Peter to react by being big, not bitter.

SEE ALSO: feelings, hurt • umbrage, taking

bicycle, learning to ride a

Duck on a Bike DAVID SHANNON

Those first shaky attempts at life on two wheels are hard enough without having to deal with the fears or taunts of those watching from the sidelines, too. It’s apt, then, that Duck on a Bike – in which Duck decides to have a go on an appealing little red bicycle – focuses more on the responses of the other animals in the farmyard than on how Duck’s doing himself. ‘He’s going to hurt himself if he’s not careful,’ frets the sheep. ‘You’re still not as fast as me,’ taunts the horse. But after the initial wobbles, Duck soars past them all gleefully, managing not to let them spoil his fun. Read this to a child, then let go of their saddle with a cheery smile.

THE TEN BEST BOOKS FOR KEEPING KIDS ON TWO WHEELS

Bear on a Bike STELLA BLACKSTONE, ILLUSTRATED BY DEBBIE HARTER

Mrs Armitage on Wheels QUENTIN BLAKE

Super Grandpa DAVID M SCHWARZ, ILLUSTRATED BY BERT DODSON

Along a Long Road FRANK VIVA

Eric’s Big Day ROD WATERS

Julian’s Glorious Summer ANN CAMERON

Five Go to Billycock Hill ENID BLYTON

Hero on a Bicycle SHIRLEY HUGHES

The Green Bicycle HAIFAA AL MANSOUR

The Burning City ARIEL AND JOAQUIN DORFMAN

SEE ALSO: confidence, lack of • pain, being in

birds and bees, wanting to know about the

SEE: sex, having questions about

blamed, being

The Ghost of Thomas Kempe PENELOPE LIVELY

Being blamed for something that isn’t your fault is a lonely business, and a child in this predicament will appreciate the solidarity of ten-year-old James in The Ghost of Thomas Kempe. When his family move to a cottage in the Oxfordshire countryside, James is soon aware that something very strange is going on. His dog barks at thin air, cups crash to the floor for no reason – and now he has found a note, scrawled in spidery writing with his own red pen: ‘I like not this quille.’ It goes on to tell James how to solve the mystery of his father’s missing pipe.

James doesn’t have a particularly good track record behaviour-wise, so it’s not surprising when the blame for these mysterious goings-on gets pinned on him. And when the same antiquated scrawl turns up on the blackboard at school (‘I have been about the towne and I am much displeased . . .’), the teacher jumps to the same conclusion. But when the meddling poltergeist that is Thomas Kempe – a 17th-century apothecary with some loose ends to tie up – starts scrawling ‘wyches’ over doorways and setting fire to houses, James knows he needs to find a way to send Kempe packing once and for all. Kids who find themselves cast as the scapegoat unfairly will find this story cathartic – and a catalyst for being proactive about proving their innocence.

SEE ALSO: fair, it’s not • lying • punished, being

boarding school

Some think it’s all sleepovers and tricks on the teachers. Others that it’s all cold showers and no hugs. Cheer up your reluctant boarder with the stories on our first list below – and sober up a wannabe midnight-feaster with those on the second.

THE FIVE BEST BOOKS FOR REMINDING YOU HOW LUCKY YOU ARE TO BE AT BOARDING SCHOOL

First Term (Malory Towers) ENID BLYTON

What Katy Did at School SUSAN COOLIDGE⁶

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone JK ROWLING

The School for Good and Evil SOMAN CHAINANI

Spud JOHN VAN DE RUIT

THE FIVE BEST BOOKS FOR PUTTING YOU OFF GOING TO BOARDING SCHOOL

Tom Brown’s Schooldays THOMAS HUGHES

Back Home MICHELLE MAGORIAN

Midnight for Charlie Bone JENNY NIMMO

Witch Week (Chrestomanci) DIANA WYNNE JONES⁷

What I Was MEG ROSOFF

SEE ALSO: bed, wanting to go to before someone else • homesickness • loneliness

body hair

Hair in Funny Places BABETTE COLE

‘Are These My Basoomas I See Before Me?’ (Confessions of Georgia Nicolson) LOUISE RENNISON

Kimchi & Calamari ROSE KENT

To explain to a younger sibling the strange and alarming new hair sprouting on the body of an older sibling, bring in the trusty Babette Cole. Not one to beat around the bush,⁸ she’ll tell them everything they need to know without anyone getting embarrassed.

Older girls should put themselves in the hands of the great Louise Rennison, the doyenne of all the joys and horrors of changing bodies; while boys will find solace in the frank and touching diary of 14-year-old Joseph Calderaro in Kimchi & Calamari who, having been set a school assignment to research his ancestry, wonders which genes will dominate – his smooth-skinned Korean or his hairy Italian?

SEE ALSO: adolescence • body odour • hormones, raging

body image

Cinderella’s Bum NICHOLAS ALLAN

Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes CHRIS CRUTCHER

Most children start off having lots of fun with their bodies – but it only takes one insensitive comment for all that to change. If self-consciousness arrives early – or looks like it might be passed down from an older sibling to a younger – we recommend Cinderella’s Bum, featuring as it does a big sister who doesn’t like her bum, and a little sister who can’t see anything wrong with it. ‘I think it’s lovely,’ the little sister says, beaming up at her sister’s backside admiringly – while her big sister scowls at herself in a full-length mirror. The little sister proceeds to point out that well-padded bums come in handy for ‘crash landings’ and sitting on a throne – and anyway, why not focus on a body part that you do like instead? That the big sister has actually been attempting to squeeze herself into the wrong swimming costume all along makes for a lovely twist.

Young Adult fiction tackling this sensitive issue must tread a careful line, portraying the positive potential for change without inadvertently triggering a crisis (see: eating disorder). Chris Crutcher manages to do this with grace in his intriguing Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes. Chubby Eric and his friend Sarah Byrnes put a school newspaper together as a way of getting back at those who have made them the butt of their jokes. They call it ‘Crispy Pork Rinds’ – Eric being the ‘pork’; Sarah, who has terrible burns on her face and body, being the ‘crispy’; and rinds because they’re ‘the parts that are left . . . that nobody pays attention to’. Their self-described bond as ‘terminal uglies’ brought them together in first grade; but over the years they’ve realised they have more important things in common, including their sense of humour and a passion for words. When Eric discovers a talent for swimming, they begin to drift apart – especially as he starts to lose weight as a result. Out of solidarity with Sarah, he tries to keep the pounds on so he can remain the freaky fat friend of the freaky charred girl. But his metabolism betrays him, and he decides the next best way to ‘stay fat for Sarah’ is to refuse any invitation that doesn’t include her too. When, in their final year at school, he discovers that Sarah’s burns were not caused by an accident as she’s always claimed but inflicted deliberately by her father (see: abuse), Eric realises that it’s not a person’s issues that define them but the way they deal with them. This story shows children that it’s their attitude towards their body that matters, not their body itself – whatever its imagined failings might be.

SEE ALSO: eating disorder • overweight, being

body odour

The Smelly Book BABETTE COLE

No one responds well to being told they smell. But The Smelly Book – a delightful romp in words and pictures through all things rotten, rancid and pongy, from fish to feet and stinky cheese to piles of trash – will establish some standards for which smells are nice and which are not. Make it part of a child’s library from the start and it’ll provide you with a useful context for some gentle ribbing (while you hold your nose) later on. Did these whiffy socks fall from The Smelly Book . . .? Babette Cole’s characteristically energetic ink-and-wash illustrations bring a much-needed lightness of touch to the whole malodorous subject.

SEE ALSO: bath, not wanting to have a • hands, not wanting to wash your

bookworm, being a

FIND FICTIONAL FELLOW-OBSESSIVES

One minute all they want to do is play with their friends. The next their face has been replaced by the cover of an open book. Your previously sociable child has become a silent semi-presence, blind and deaf to the goings-on in the actual world. They walk to school without looking at their feet; they fork food into their mouth sight unseen; and when they come home, they’re a guided missile locked on their reading nook. Your child has been bitten by the bug.

But that doesn’t mean they’re not being social. Ensure they meet people of like mind in the books they read by scattering some of the titles in the following list in their path. Here they’ll find characters who, like them, devour books – and not just the words and the stories, but the paper they’re printed on. Here they’ll meet people who inhabit books, lose themselves in books, live through books and have their lives invaded by the characters in their books. Even as a bookworm they can be surrounded by soulmates. One day they will emerge from their chrysalis with new wings, enriched by their understanding of narrative, psychology and the world.

THE TEN BEST BOOKS ABOUT BOOKWORMS

Beware of the Storybook Wolves LAUREN CHILD

Charlie Cook’s Favourite Book JULIA DONALDSON, ILLUSTRATED BY AXEL SCHEFFLER

The Incredible Book Eating Boy OLIVER JEFFERS

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore WE JOYCE

The Boy Who Loved Words RONI SCHOTTER, ILLUSTRATED BY GISELLE POTTER

The Wishing Spell (The Land of Stories) CHRIS COLFER

Matilda ROALD DAHL, ILLUSTRATED BY QUENTIN BLAKE

Inkheart CORNELIA FUNKE

Story Thieves JAMES RILEY

The Book Thief MARKUS ZUSAK

boots, being too big for your

Shola and the Lions BERNARDO ATXAGA, ILLUSTRATED BY MIKEL VALVERDE

Children who think they are particularly wonderful inspire a mixture of admiration and horror. Their confidence will no doubt take them far, but one can’t help notice the disparity between the size of their ego and the size of, er, them. Basque author Bernardo Atxaga visits this idea in his story about the inflated Shola. When a well-travelled friend visits Shola’s human owner, Señor Grogó, and shares his tales of African kings and voracious wild animals, he leaves a book behind: The Lion, King of the Jungle. Shola laps it up, recognising herself in the description of the powerful, noble beasts who hunt for their food rather than suffer the indignity of being served ready-made mince (aromatic and alluring though mince is). Off Shola then heads to the jungle – er, park – to track down her next meal. Unfortunately all she finds is rotten food from the bins, a rather terrifying Burmese cat, and an impertinent duck. Slowly, she begins to see the truth for what it is and goes home to Señor Grogó, who, fortunately, has the mince still waiting. Valverde’s quirky line-and-watercolour drawings perfectly capture the contrast between Shola’s view of herself and the real her – a small and somewhat unimpressive white dog. Those with a bit of Shola in them will be nudged very gently into the appropriately sized boots.

SEE ALSO: bossiness • in charge, wanting to be • precociousness

bored, being

Harold and the Purple Crayon CROCKETT JOHNSON

Journey, Quest and Return (Journey) AARON BECKER

In these days of electronic devices – eagerly waiting to occupy the slightest unfilled moment – it’s rare to catch sight of a bored child wandering disconsolately from room to room, complaining to whoever will listen that ‘there isn’t anything to do’ and occasionally kicking the cat. In the circumstance that you find one, seize the opportunity to re-set expectations with the ultimate paean to making something out of nothing, Harold and the Purple Crayon.

It’s over half a century since Crockett Johnson’s onesie-clad toddler went for a walk in the moonlight and, realising there was no moon, drew one into existence. He draws the path he’s walking on and everything it leads him to – including, eventually, his room and his bed, when it’s time to go to sleep. The fetching shape of the toddler as he reaches up to the far corners of the page with his crayon pulls us ineluctably in; as does the fact that the crayon is presented as just an ordinary crayon. Bring this classic out for entertainment-challenged kids of all ages, together with pens and a pad of white paper – or, even better, a wall – and encourage them to invent what they will.

Older kids can graduate to Aaron Becker’s sumptuous graphic trilogy, beginning with Journey, which plays on the same idea. A little girl sits on the steps of her sepia-tinged house, fed up. We can see a man at a computer upstairs, a woman stirring something on the stove downstairs, and a sister lying on the sofa engaged with – you guessed it – a screen. When the little girl’s attempts to lure each of them out to play come to nothing, she drifts to her room and slumps on her bed. But then she notices a stick of crimson chalk . . .

The wood she finds through the door she draws on her wall is enchanting: lanterns swing from the branches and a river threads between the trunks. At the end of a dock, she draws a crimson boat that carries her downstream to a city full of spires and domes. Uniformed guards welcome her in with waving arms. Architectural complexities abound as we follow her across a raised canal, complete with locks, down which city-dwellers are propelled in Venetian-style gondolas, shaded by fringed parasols. Waterfalls cascade from great heights. When her canal ends, mid-air, it catches her out – but she quickly draws a hot-air balloon as she falls . . . The absence of words makes this picture book and its sequels gloriously untaxing for the irritable brain, while there’s enough detail in the watercolour fantasyscapes to warrant a careful poring-over of each page. A cure for boredom in itself, Becker’s work is also brilliant for launching kids into their own inner landscapes.

boring relatives, having

SEE: bored, being • grannies, having to kiss

CURE FOR GROWN-UPS

Harry and the Wrinklies ALAN TEMPERLEY

If you’re the boring relly, do everyone a favour and read this hilarious romp. When Harry spots his two ‘decrepit’ great-aunts on the station platform, he thinks, ‘Please let it not be them!’ One is thin and tall with a large straw hat and looks like a standard lamp. The other is short, plump and looks like a pink meringue. But Harry is in for a big surprise. Aunt Bridget and Auntie Florrie – with whom he has come to live – immediately suggest they drive home by way of the aerodrome. ‘Seat belt fastened safely?’ Auntie Florrie asks, before snapping a switch beneath the dashboard of the ancient Mercedes. A powerful roar throbs to life and, as the car gathers speed on the disused runway, the speedometer edges up: 90, 95 . . . 130 . . . Harry feels the leather press against his back as the wind slams in and the countryside turns to a blur. ‘Lovely! Blow the cobwebs away!’ cries Aunt Bridget.

Afterwards, Harry’s two wrinkly aunts take him home for a nice glass of sherry (he’s ten), and show him his tower room at Lagg Hall, the stately home they share with various other ‘prehistoric’ folk. As Harry luxuriates in the space, the woods and the dog, it soon becomes clear that these two old biddies are far from innocent and are, in fact, incapable of being dull. Read this, and you won’t be dull either.

bossiness

The Willoughbys LOIS LOWRY

Bossy children will squirm in the presence of twelve-year-old Tim, the eldest of the Willoughby children in this delightful parody of literary children’s classics. The Willoughbys are an ‘old-fashioned family’; and as befits an old-fashioned eldest boy, Timothy makes all the decisions for his siblings, ten-year-old twins ‘Barnaby A’ and ‘Barnaby B’, and six-year-old Jane: what game they’ll play, what the rules are, how they will behave in church and whether or not they will like the food on their plates. According to Timothy’s design, they each start the day with fifty points, which are then deducted if they do anything he doesn’t approve of. The other children are so much in his thrall, they even ask if they can ask a question.

You can see how he got to be this way. The kids are landed with terrible parents who have a poor opinion of their offspring. Tim, they say, is ‘insufferable’, the twins are ‘repetitive’ and Jane – well, they seem to be unaware that they have a fourth child at all. The children have begun to realise they’d be better off without their parents, and when Mr and Mrs Willoughby, having reached more or less the same conclusion about their children, abscond on a global adventure, hiring a nanny (see: babysitter, not liking your) and putting the house on the market (see: moving house), the four siblings prepare hopefully for imminent orphanhood (see: orphan, wishing you were an). Meanwhile, Tim puts himself in charge.

Luckily, their firm and capable nanny sees how to help, first relieving Tim of his point-system duties, then finding a way to integrate households with their near-neighbour, Commander Melanoff – who also takes in Ruth, the abandoned baby they found on their doorstep. Under Melanoff’s influence, Tim pulls himself up ‘by [his] bootstraps’ and although he doesn’t lose his bossiness completely (he goes on to become a lawyer, after all) he does become nice enough to win the heart of baby Ruth once she grows up.

A story best enjoyed by those well versed in the classics it parodies,⁹ use it to initiate a discussion on the issue of bossiness. Would Tim have become bossy if his parents had taken more of a role in their children’s lives? What’s the difference between being bossy and being a leader? Do you think anyone really enjoys being bossy?

SEE ALSO: boots, being too big for your • in charge, wanting to be • precociousness • share, inability to • told, never doing what you’re • unfriendliness

brainwashed, being

A Wrinkle in Time MADELEINE L’ENGLE

The potential for the mass seduction of the young via digital media is a disturbing phenomenon, and today’s teens must wise up to the self-serving propagandists of our time if they want to hold on to their own ideals and identities. Madeleine l’Engle’s cult classic will help them do so.

When the mysterious Mrs Whatsit and her friends whisk siblings Meg and Charles Wallace off on a quest to find their missing father – an eminent physicist at work on ‘tesseracts’ – their mother, also a scientist, doesn’t stand in their way. It’s a journey that takes them through time and space to a planet that’s controlled by a larger-than-life being – a giant, bodiless brain called ‘IT’. The hypnotic pulse of IT – removing all responsibility and angst, but also one’s ability to act of one’s own accord – has everyone trapped in its thrall, their father included. Charles Wallace, a boy possessed of such a luminous, unusual intelligence that he’s considered by all but his family to be an idiot, is confident his own brain will be strong enough to resist; but he proves as fallible as his father. It’s up to Meg to find the way out of IT’s overpowering influence – and the key turns out to be not a high IQ but something she carries in her heart. Teens should take note of Meg’s revelation. When everyone around them is succumbing to the will of another, this newfound knowledge will help keep them securely grounded.

SEE ALSO: astray, being led • peer pressure

bras

Bras, Boys and Blunders in Bahrain VIDYA SAMSON

Acquiring a first bra can be fraught for a teen or pre-teen girl. Get it too early, and they might be mocked; get it too late, and they might be mocked even more. Vidya Samson’s hilarious spin on the subject is a welcome de-stresser.

Veena is a fifteen-year-old Indian girl living in Bahrain whose mother has a meltdown at the very mention of the word bra. Such is Veena’s inexperience generally, she is yet to actually speak to a boy – even though she gazes rhapsodically at the gorgeous Rashid between classes. And when it’s time for ‘The Talk’ in sex education, Veena is one of the few for whom it’s all genuinely news.

Effortlessly clever, but lacking in the street wisdom that could come along with motherly advice, Veena decides she has to tackle the problem of her flat chest herself – and asks her best friend, Unita, to come shopping with her. When they find the answer – an affordable, padded bra – there’s still the problem of when to start wearing it. How do you go from being ‘flat as a pancake’ to needing a bra overnight? Veena’s first attempts to put the bra on in a toilet cubicle at school are hilarious, and she ends up working out a mathematical equation for how to do up the hooks behind her back. When she suddenly erupts in terrible boils, she assumes it must be an allergy to the socks she’s stuffing in, or the bra itself – and confesses all to her mother. It turns out to be chicken pox (see: chicken pox).

Veena’s bra-related torments and her gradual realisation that there are boys other than Rashid who might appreciate her for more than her sock-magnified curves will help teens relax about whether or not they get the underwiring right.

SEE ALSO: embarrassment • flat-chested, being

broken limb

SEE: bed, having to stay in • pain, being in

brother, having a

SEE: sibling rivalry • sibling, having to look after a little

bruises, cuts and

Nurse Clementine SIMON JAMES

Keep a copy of this in the medicine cabinet, along with the plasters, Savlon and Wasp-Eze. The fetchingly drawn story of a little girl whose grown-ups buy her a nurse’s outfit and a first-aid kit for her birthday (‘You can call me Nurse Clementine from now on!’), it’ll provide an excellent distraction while you clean and disinfect the wound. Clementine’s approach to on-the-spot care is to wrap the hurting part copiously in bandages, adding a firm instruction to keep them on for a week. When there’s no one left in the family requiring treatment, she wonders what on earth to do with herself. And then, thankfully, her brother gets stuck up a tree . . . The pen and wash illustrations – majoring in cream, peach and the gentlest of apple greens – are as soothing to the eye as is the sight of a top-to-toe bandaged little brother to Nurse Clementine at the end.

SEE ALSO: cheering up, needing • pain, being in

bullied, being

One KATHRYN OTOSHI

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night ALLAN AHLBERG, ILLUSTRATED BY JANET AHLBERG

Jane, the Fox and Me FANNY BRITT, ILLUSTRATED BY ISABELLE ARSENAULT

Being bullied is a grim ordeal and one which every grown-up hopes their child will be spared. If it does happen, it’s helpful to have some stories to hand which offer practical solutions as well as solace. One captures the complex group dynamics involved in bullying with striking clarity by casting splodges of colour as the characters, set against spanking white spreads. ‘Blue’ is quiet – not outgoing like orange, or regal like purple, or sunny like yellow; and Red, a ‘hot head’, likes to pick on Blue. When Red taunts Blue, Red gets bigger; and though sometimes the other colours comfort Blue, telling him what a nice colour he is, they don’t ever dare say it in front of Red . . . It’s hard to triumph over a bully by yourself, and how Red is brought into line by the power of the group provides an inspiring model. Read it to the bullied, to those on the sidelines, and also to the bully themselves. After all, what Red really wants is a friend, just like everyone else.

A bully can often work their way into a position of power without anyone noticing. If this happens in a classroom, share It Was a Dark and Stormy Night. A bunch of moustachioed brigands have kidnapped eight-year-old Antonio and carried him off to a secret cave. There they demand he tell them a story – being, actually, a bunch of overgrown kids. Brave Antonio takes a big breath and launches in with ‘Once upon a time’, but he hasn’t got much further before the brigands interrupt with their own ideas of what should happen next – none more so than the Big Chief himself, who wants to be the hero and sulks when he’s not. The brigands know better than to argue with the Big Chief and they let him have his way. But when Antonio gets to the bit where the brigands share the treasure out equally among themselves, and the outraged chief insists that he would take all the treasure himself, they begin to shuffle uncomfortably. Never has the unfairness of their situation been pointed out to them so clearly. Antonio soon has them turning on their chief for his domineering, bullying ways, upsetting the stewpot in all the commotion. Get a discussion going about how sometimes it takes an outsider – or the right story – to overthrow the narcissistic bully in a group.

The misery of being ostracised by a gang is captured with great sensitivity in the Canadian graphic novel Jane, the Fox and Me. Teenager Hélène is persecuted by the hip clique at her Montreal school. ‘She smells like BO,’ they write on the washroom door. No one will sit beside her on the bus, and though her mother stays up all night making her a new dress (last year’s fashion, alas) Hélène finds she can’t bring herself to confide in her. When a school trip is announced, everyone is thrilled. But for Hélène the idea of being cooped up with ‘forty kids . . . not one of them a friend’ is pure torture.

Sensibly, Hélène escapes into a book at camp – Jane Eyre – where she finds another lonely girl, but one who grows up ‘clever, slender and wise’ nonetheless. When Jane finds Mr Rochester (‘how wonderful, how impossible’, thinks Hélène, wise to easy romanticism), only to lose him again, Hélène is about to tear up the book in despair. But just then a dark-haired girl she’s never noticed before walks into her tent – and changes everything. It’s only when colour starts to splash the pages that we realise how monotone Hélène’s world has been until now; and how quickly joy, when it sees its chance, rushes in. A fine fictional example of bibliotherapy at work, this gem of a book is the ideal cure for a teen getting back on the road once bullying has come to light.

SEE ALSO: anger • anxiety • good at anything, feeling like you’re no • heard, not feeling • loneliness • loser, feeling like a • mistake, frightened about making a • nightmares • parents who can’t talk about emotions, having • role model, in need of a positive • run away, urge to • sadness • stand up for yourself, not feeling able to • self-harm • scared, being • sleep, unable to get to • stuck • suicidal thoughts • trusting, being too • worrying • wrong, everything’s going

bully, being a

Many things can make a child into a bully, but only two things can really cure them: learning to see things from the point of view of their victim, and understanding why they might feel the impulse to be a bully themselves. Stories are a great way to develop empathy and instil self-knowledge. Take your pick from the following list.

THE TEN BEST BOOKS FOR UNDERSTANDING BULLYING

Playground 50 CENT

Cloud Busting MALORIE BLACKMAN

Blubber JUDY BLUME

Judy Moody Was in a Mood MEGAN MCDONALD, ILLUSTRATED BY PETER H REYNOLDS

I Am Sort of a Loser (Barry Loser) JIM SMITH

The Ant Colony JENNY VALENTINE

The Butterfly Club JACQUELINE WILSON, ILLUSTRATED BY NICK SHARRATT

Cookie JACQUELINE WILSON, ILLUSTRATED BY NICK SHARRATT

By the Time You Read This, I’ll be Dead JULIE ANNE PETERS

Crash JERRY SPINELLI

SEE ALSO: in charge, wanting to be • sibling rivalry • violence

1 Only available to the under-18s.

2 Who also features in Dr Seuss’s Horton Hatches the Egg (see: adoption).

3 The Gossie & Gertie books are also available as early readers.

4 Even though it is, chronologically speaking, the second book in the series. We believe the series is, like Star Wars, best experienced in the order in which the books were created, which is as follows: 1. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; 2. Prince Caspian; 3. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; 4. The Silver Chair; 5. The Horse and His Boy; 6. The Magician’s Nephew; 7. The Last Battle.

5 If you are reading this book chronologically, you will have become aware of the impact the Blitz has had on British children’s literature – and therefore, bibliotherapeutically speaking, on those of us who were weaned on it. Where would we be without these stories set in big country houses, full of mysterious discoveries, and with parents conveniently out of the way?

6 Best enjoyed after the first book in the series, What Katy Did.

7 Best enjoyed after the first two books in the series, Charmed Life and The Magicians of Caprona.

8 Pun intended.

9 Pollyanna, The Secret Garden, Heidi, Anne of Green Gables, Jane Eyre, Silas Marner . . .

10 If we were keeping a running count of fictional examples of bibliotherapy to be found in children’s literature, this would be number two, and we are still only on C. Now that the point has been made, we’ll stop counting.