This post is the first of four posts I’ll be writing this month about bullying-related literature you can use with your students. Click here to learn more about this special series on bullying. Be sure to check out the giveaway Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division is doing this week for readers of this blog post. Details follow at the bottom of this post.
I cannot begin to tell you how many times my husband and I have heard the phrase, “You’re life is going to change,” once people find out we’re expecting a baby early next year. I chuckle a bit every time I hear this since I know our lives are going to change, hopefully for the better. It seems inevitable and obvious that they would. However, reading The Boss Baby by Marla Frazee can make any expectant parent a little nervous about the way a baby can take over the house and rule the roost once s/he arrives.
The Boss Baby isn’t written for parents, although the book is extremely witty. Rather, it’s target audience four to eight year-olds, which makes it a perfect text to use with primary students when you notice bossy, demanding, or snippy behavior playing out in your classroom. Since The Boss Baby is a humorous story about a baby who bosses his parents around incessantly, it’s a non-threatening way to get kids talking about the way they treat their others, advertently or inadvertently. On the surface, it may not seem like an obvious book to introduce the subject of bullying, but I truly believe its humorous tone will help break down kids’ walls about bullying and get them to start admitting about the ways in which they treat others. Just as you would with any read aloud you do, plan for think-alouds, turn & talks, and even a stop & jot while you’re reading. Small group discussions, with accountable talk, seem like a natural way to close-out this story.
Here are three excerpts from the text so you can read Frazee’s clever writing style. To that end, The Boss Baby can also serve as a mentor for your students who are writing about times they’ve felt bossed around or hurt by the seemingly uncaring attitude of another person.
Giveaway Information:
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Thanks to Simon & Schuster, we’re hosting a giveaway of The Boss Baby, as well as five other books that deal with bullying. To win one of the books, including The Boss Baby, leave a comment about this post, in the comments section of this post by Thursday, November 11th at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time. A random drawing will take place on Sunday morning, November 14th and all SIX winners’ name will be announced in a blog post later that day. Please be sure to leave a valid e-mail address when you post your comment (Your e-mail address will not be published online.) so I can contact you to obtain your mailing address. Once I receive your mailing address, I’ll pass it along to my contact in the marketing department at Simon & Schuster who will ship the books out to all six of our lucky winners.
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The other bullying-related books we’re giving away are Bullies Never Win by Margery Cuyler, Dork Diaries by Rachel Renee Russell, Jason Drake, Bully Buster by Andrew Celements, The Misfits by James Howe and Totally Joe by James Howe.
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A review copy of this book was provided by Simon & Schuster.
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Material from The Boss Baby is used by permission from Simon & Schuster, copyright © 2010 by Marla Frazee.
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Found your website today through Twitter. Our school just began this year implementing the Writer’s Workshop. This book looks like it would be a great addition to a mini-lesson. Thanks!
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Just discovered your website today! I can’t wait to explore it more. Bullying and bullying prevention are things we are dealing with daily at a wide range of grade levels. I will be looking for this book to add to my collection. Thank you!
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I am thrilled to have found your website via the Responsive Classroom on facebook. We are a Responsive Classroom school, and have been using our training to eliminate bullying in our school. Using the books you have suggested will be great tools for our discussions.
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I’m always looking for ways to help prevent bullying. We are given no resources but need to be proactive in making kids aware of what it is and how to stop it and prevent it.
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Thank you for this book suggestion. I believe the students would get alot out of reading this. In addition to bullying, it would be great for siblings who feel as if the new baby is taking over and they are losing their mommy.
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I’m reading The Hiding Place with a 9th grade tutee and learning about Nazism. Bullying the weak and the old were a huge part of Hitler Youth and we had a great discussion based on that. I will look up these books to add to our text to text and text to world connections!
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I am so excited about this series and equally thrilled that you started with Marla Frazee’s book. She is so amazing, and I never would have thought to tie the book into bullying, but now I see that it completely fits!
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Thank you so much for the book suggestion. As an aspiring teacher, I am trying to build my classroom library, so I make note of as many titles as I can and search through book and yard sales!
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Thank you for recommending The Bossy Baby. We have an issue in our classroom this year (seems like every year!) with a bullying/bossy child. I use the Discipline Without Stress classroom management model in my classroom and this seems like a good book to discuss levels of behavior: A (anarchy or total chaos), B (Bullying/Bossing), C (Cooperation), D (Democracy or doing the right thing. I will be looking up this and other titles in my public library.
Cheers!
Elisa
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Marla Frazee does it again, writing a book that will pull young readers in and have them clamoring for more!
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What a timely topic considering our world today! We can’t introduce it soon enough.
On the home front: A couple of weeks ago my normally calm, level-headed son-in-law stopped the car and shouted at his two-year-old, “Katie, you are not the tyrannt of this family! I am!” She had been screaming her little head off for miles, but fortunatly got the message that she’d better pipe down.
In the classroom: My fifth graders were reading Holes Louis Sachar) and were having some difficulty making connections. I finally asked them how Stanley had ended up at Camp Greenlake. Immediately, they said he was bullied. What great connections I got then!
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Using literature is a great way to start discussions about bullying. This would be very useful especially in my school since we are implementing new initiatives to deal with the problem of bullying. A great book that I am currently using to address this issue is One by Kathryn Otoshi. It is a simple color and number book that teaches a powerful lesson about bullying.
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This is a great book! There is a girl in a third grade class that I work with who always wants to boss her friends. We just had another problem-solving session on Friday. This is a must-have! Thank you again!
p.s. Those babies grow up so fast – enjoy every exhausting minute!
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I’m so excited about this book. I will share with our librarian as well. Our books on this topic are very old and outdated in our school. We all seem to have these kids in our classrooms and this topic needs to be adrdessed when students are young. Thanks for sharing with all of us!!!
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I love Marla Frazee! What an important and great series to highlight. Bullying is a major issue in schools and needs to be addressed.
btw: Congratulations! Yes, your baby will take over and change your world but it is wonderful:-)
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Ha-ha! The Boss Baby looks hilarious! It is true, the baby will take over and rule the roost. Good luck!
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Thank you so much for the timely information. I think the whole country is more aware of this issue, and it will take EVERYONE to improve it.
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Bullying is a very serious problem that we are facing in our schools. It’s an issue that a lot of people push to the side. As educators I think it is our job to discuss bullying of any form with our students and not permitted it in our classroom. Thanks for the great blog!
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Building good character is not easy. These books look like great discussion starters for a difficult topic. My kids love doing “social stories,” and I know they will relate to the topics addressed in these books.
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We are working on bullying at my school. At the present time we are looking for books to use with students. This sounds like a good one to promote discussion on this topic.
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Sounds like some great books. Thanks for the chance bkhabel at gmail dot com
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It is great to have mentor texts to help us out in our class communities. Especially with a subject like bullying when you want every child’s attention.
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This is perfect timing! I’m deaing with bullying isses in my class right now and I’m glad that you’re writing about it. I am reading aloud The Hundred Dresses as a read aloud in order to start discussions about bullying.
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This would be great for the first read aloud of the day when you are building community and addressing the social issues in the class. Thanks for introducing interesting books.
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It’s great learning about new books dealing with bullying. our district is working with “Rachel’s Challenge” to try and change behavior.
I really enjoy your blog. Thank you for sharing.
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Great timing; we had a presentation about bullying at our faculty meeting this afternoon. Glad to have some titles to check out!
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This book looks like a great recommendation. I’m always looking for new books to add to my collection to use with my students.
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I’m at my favorite book store right now checking out the titles you recommended. I just started a unit of study centered around bullying, starting with Recess Queen, then Odd Velvet, then today tried The Ok Book. All great fodder for writing! Keep the great recommendations coming!
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It’s so hard for teachers to bring up the issue of bullying. I’m not sure why…is it because it feels so negative? The boss baby sounds so real (we all want to be bossy sometimes) and doesn’t scapegoat those who find themselves pushing others around.
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This looks so funny! I was reading one of my student’s weekly letters today. I had left a stack of recommendations for her on her desk and she had chosen Chicken Soup for the Girls Soul. The one story she chose to comment on was a story about a girl who had been bullied. Bullying takes place in all kinds of forms and this was a great reminder to start talking to my girls about the “friend/bully.”
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I love “Walk On” by Marla Frazee. So great! I think it’s hysterical that she refers to the baby’s bouncer seat as his “office” because that’s what my friends and I call our babies’ bouncer seats! Ha!!!! What a great book. I hope I win! Six chances!
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The Boss Baby is great! I wanted to read the other pages. This would be a great discussion starter w/a class of 10 year olds. They love picture books and always comment that they’re never to old to love a good story w/pictures.
This could easily start a worthwhile discussion.
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Thank you for taking on this series. My 7th & 8th graders love the Dork Diaries! The books don’t stay on my shelves for more than a few minutes.
I love that literature is a door to great conversations with kids.
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I love reading about new books to use as mentor text. I appreciate the focus on books about bullying because they provide a jump start to class discussions.
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I am a long time fan of your web site! We are beginning to address bullying in our school of 1300 students. I would LOVE to add to my own collection of books to use in my first grade inclusion class!
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Thanks so much for the good book suggestions about bullying! This seems to be an increasing problem in our school, and this book seems like a great way to open up conversation about it.
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Wow! I am so glad more books are available to teach about not bulling and how to handle a bully when you are a child. My first graders love discussing how to make good choices and what to do if they have to deal with a bully after reading picture books.
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This is an issue we’re seeing more and more of in our school. It’s nice to see literature being a part of the fight against it. Thank you so much for helping bring light to this powerful weapon against bullying!
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Stacey first of all thanks for your comment this morning on my blog-it meant the world to me. Thanks for sharing another mentor text for my classroom. Our focus is on dialogue and how to choose words carefully in our writing workshop. This books seems amazing for that idea.
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I think this is great! It feels like bullying is a huge problem this year – more than others! My class is having huge issues with it.
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I’ve been looking for good picture books that cover bullying. There’s so many different types of bullying that kids need to be aware – for kids who need to realize that they are bullying (some don’t realize the impact of their words) to others who can act rather than be a bystander.
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I just found your website early this week and I am so glad I did. This is an issue I have happening in my classroom right now. What a great book to open up a discussion about how we treat each other in our classroom community. Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful ideas.
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My school launched the Olweus Bully Prevention Program last year. We are working diligently to empower bystanders and change the culture of our school. Our OBPP committee has also been working on building a stockpile of resources such as children’s literature that can be used with students during class meetings. These books would be a great addition!
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Bullying is such a difficult issue to tackle, but it is SO necessary with students. I teach high school, but I think even this lower level text would engage my students and elicit insightful discussion.
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Thanks so much for always having a new book to be used as mentor texts in the classroom. They are always so engaging and very contemporary! Keep up the good work!
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Thanks for the great suggestion for bully. It is such an important topic to address beginning in the primary grades. I am going to see if I can find this book at my local library. I’m sure I’ll get a chuckle out of it as well. I have a one-year-old “boss baby” of my own at home 🙂
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I think this is a great project you are doing! I am always looking for new books to share with my students and bullying is an extremely relevant topic right now!
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