The Bully and the Shrimp

The Bully and the Shrimp – a book review

We recently received our latest Book Buddy book from Parragon Books and I was interested to see what Monkey would make of the subject matter. The Bully and the Shrimp is a paperback book written by Catherine Allison and illustrated by Kim Geyer.

The Bully and the Shrimp

Bullying isn’t something Monkey has come across yet; he’s only just starting out on his school journey.  Sadly I know only too well how upsetting the results of being bullied are, so I was intrigued to see how The Bully and the Shrimp would tackle the issue in a way that Monkey would understand.

The story revolves are a little boy called Noah Shrimpton who has moved and is starting at a new school.  The first child he comes across is naughty Connor, who calls him Shrimpy. It’s the start of a cycle of name calling and petty ‘accidents’ that poor Noah has to endure.

The Bully and the Shrimp

But there is a happy twist to this tale, Noah has made friends at his new school, he is not alone.  This gives Noah the confidence he needs to stand up to the bully and tell him he won’t be bullied any more.

Monkey asked lots of questions the first time we read  The Bully and the Shrimp together.  The subject matter is dealt with very cleverly and I have to be honest, it’s not a topic I would have covered with Monkey.  But, I’m glad we have using this book.  Monkey couldn’t understand why Connor would be so mean to Noah.  We talked about everyone being different and that that was a good thing, that name calling wasn’t nice and being friendly was a good attitude to have.

There is a good moral theme running throughout The Bully and the Shrimp and Monkey has enjoyed reading it with me.  I can certainly see us reading this as a story book but also to reinforce our own family values.  It could also help if Monkey finds himself on the receiving end of a Connor type character in the future.  Fingers crossed that he doesn’t, but forewarned is forearmed.

You can currently purchase The Bully and the Shrimp through Amazon for £5.99 and my affiliate link to the relevant page is shown below.

disclaimer:  we were sent this book in exchange for an honest review

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