Stealin' Wheels: Ben Rides On by Matt Davies

NOW THAT HE HAD THE BICYCLE OF HIS DREAMS, BEN LUKIN LOVED GOING TO SCHOOL.

WITH HIS GLEAMING NEW MACHINE, HE COULD TAKE THE LONG WAY,

OR PERHAPS THE VERY LONG WAY.

At last Ben Lukin has wheels and his first ride to school is a bit of extreme biking which encourages a trip through a drainage tunnel and an exuberant Evel Knievel jump over five school buses!

But Ben's new wheels catch the eye of the wrong guy, the official class bully:

SSADLY, ADRIAN UNDERBITE, PERHAPS THE WORLD'S LARGEST THIRD GRADER, DIDN'T SEEM TO LIKE BEN VERY MUCH.

With a evil, gleeful look that dares Ben to do anything about it, the enormous Underbite appropriates Ben's new bike and rides off on it gleefully, leaving the crestfallen Ben to hoof it home, with only a pesky crow for company.

But as Ben trudges along, he hears a loud WWWGGRRAAWWWWWWW!

Following the wretched cry, Ben peers over the edge of a cliff and sees his bike bent and broken at the bottom and a terrified Adrian Underbite clinging precariously to the limb of a tiny tree growing not far below the edge of the precipice.

"HOW EXTRAORDINARILY TERRIBLE!" grins Ben in mock horror.

Satisfied that Adrian Underbite has gotten his just desserts, Ben walks away.

But after few steps Ben's conscience kicks in and he reconsiders the situation.

JUST WHEN ADRIAN THOUGHT HE COULD NOT HOLD ON ANY LONGER, A VERY FAMILIAR GREEN-AND-WHITE HOODIE APPEARED.  ADRIAN REACHED UP AND GRABBED FOR DEAR LIFE.

Does the rescued Underbite have a change of heart? Does he beg for forgiveness from his rescuer? Are the two set to be best friends forever? Well, no. He grabs Ben's beat-up bike and lumbers off on his size 10 feet with it. Sadly, Ben slogs homeward, believing that indeed, as they say, no good deed goes unpunished.

But there's an unforeseen and redeeming ending to Matt Davies' delightful little morality tale, the just published Ben Rides On (Roaring Brook, 2013).  Pulitizer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Davies makes his debut with this engaging picture book that offers literal cliff-hanging suspense and scratchy-lined, comic illustrations, with its hero Ben all attenuated long limbs and large head, the hulking bully Underbite, loutish and lumpen, and even a nosy, crabby crow who pitches in to help Ben haul Adrian up over the cliff's edge. While Davies' drawings are highly stylized, his body language and funny facial expressions add to the humor that permeates this book which surprisingly ends on an upbeat note, promising many pedaling adventures ahead for Ben.

"Facial expressions, gestures, postures, perspectives: all conspire, with a ragged, raucous elegance, to make Ben Rides On an exceptional, and exceptionally likable, tale," says School Library Journal.

Mean Girl: Bad Astrid by Eileen Brennan

SHE CAME INTO TOWN
LIKE FIVE TONS OF BAD LUCK.

A new girl on the street can be a good thing, but one look at the stocky, bellicose Astrid and you just know she's going to be trouble. And right away she gets busy living up to her appearance.

MEANER THAN ANY GIRL
YOU'LL EVER MEET...
SHE AND HER FAMILY
MOVED IN DOWN THE STREET.

Apparently born under a bad star, Astrid goes out of her way to be mean. She rides her bike through sidewalk drawings and tries to run down chipmunks. She charges through front yard flowers and leaves them beheaded, chuckling hoarsely as she plows through. Even her bike helmet sports a skull and crossbones.

Whenever anyone looks like they are having too much fun, Astrid finds a way to spoil it--knocking over the sidewalk lemonade stand in the process of a squirt-gun sneak attack.

Finally our brave narrator has had it with Astrid's meanness. At last she is mad enough to confront the bully when she careens through her popsicle-stick Eiffel Tower and deservedly suffers a spectacular bike encounter with the neighbor's mailbox and lawn gnome.

"HELP! PLEASE?" Astrid moans.

Could this be the right moment to re-negotiate this relationship?

Artist Regan Dunnick takes charge of this story with a comic portrayal of Astrid--a chunky, droopy-eared, be-jowled pooch of a bully with a build like a kitchen stove, all reckless mayhem and mean-girl menace. Astrid is the sort of bully that kids love to hate, but even bullies have feelings, as Eileen Brennan's Bad Astrid (Random House, 2013) suggests in ironic quatrains. This one is a novel approach only in Brennan's choice to deal with girl bullies, playing on the samefamiliar theme as Brandon Mull's Pingo and the Playground Bully (see my May review here) and Matt Davies' Ben Rides On, (reviewed here also in May). Even Mo Willems takes a playful look at the perennial bully problem premise in his newest best-selling beginning reader, A Big Guy Took My Ball! (Elephant and Piggie Book, An) reviewed also in May here. Bullies are a perennial problem, a prominent subject even in primary grade literature, and until all of them mend their errant ways. which will probably happen by approximately the twelfth of NEVER, authors and illustrators are guaranteed plenty of material to work with!