Battle of the Imaginary Buddies: Pingo and the Playground Bully by Brandon Mull

IN SECOND GRADE CHAD OFTEN PLAYED WITH HIS IMAGINARY FRIEND PINGO DURING RECESS.

SEVERAL OF HIS CLASSMATES HAD IMAGINARY FRIENDS AS WELL.

All is well with Chad and his friends. Even their pretend pals have complementary superpowers: Tiffany has Awesome Girl; Gary has Sparky the Robot at his command; and Dustin had Mr. Bob, the world's smallest super guy residing in his pocket at all times. With characters like that, the four kids share some unique adventures on the playground every day.

But one day, after an bizarre battle with the Lava Monsters, the four friends begin to boast about how their "special friends" are the best, and an epic conflict arises, with each imaginary alter ego besting the others in his and her own own way. To Chad's dismay, Pingo is a perennial second place in every match. Finally, Chad's pal steps in to broker a truce.

"THIS IS SILLY!" PINGO SAID. "CONTESTS ONLY PROVE WHO IS BEST AT CERTAIN THINGS."

But while the four friends are considering this piece of wisdom, they face a new adversary--their classmate Jeremy and his faux friend Grunt. Grunt is a hypothetical hero who mirrors his human creator--long on muscle and short on subtleties. Jeremy and Grunt lean more to a philosophy of pounding rather than persuasion. If Pingo is, as Chad still maintains, the BEST imaginary friend, can he figure out a way to psych out Jeremy and Grunt before everyone gets bested in a playground putdown?

Brandon Mull's latest book in Pingo series, his Pingo and the Playground Bully (Shadow Mountain, 2012) offers primary graders a look at how to co-opt a bully into becoming a buddy. Brandon Dorman's illustrations give this picture book its punch and pizzazz, especially in his illustrations of the competing fictional friends. While inviting the bully into their team of buddies may not work in the upper grades, it's a plausible plot line for second graders, and the use of their alter egos as expressions of their personalities and aspirations offers readers some insight into the primary grade social scene.

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!