Bully

Full of clever word play, this picture book graphically illustrates a bull who is a bully.  We see him first being bullied by an even bigger bull, and this starts him off being very unpleasant to his friends, calling them names and refusing to play.  It is only when the goat stands up to him and tells him he’s a bully that he realises what he has done and says ‘sorry’.  With a minimum of text and a scribbled background of pale straw, we see the little bull calling the chicken ‘Chicken!’ and the tortoise a ‘Slow Coach!’ and telling the bee to ‘Buzz Off!’.  The more he bullies,  the bigger he becomes until parts of his body fill the whole page, and by the time he comes to know what he has done, his sadly guilty face looks out at us from a full-page spread.  The illustrations – heavy black lines outlining the animals and filled in with basic colours – are simple but effective and make the beasties very much centre stage.  They are a joy, as is the little bull, who is lovable after all.