Childhood Favorites is a monthly series focusing on beloved books from the past.
Donald Zolan, Quiet Time.
Wanda wins an art contest with one hundred drawings of dresses and her father moves his family to the city where they won't be the only immigrants and where his children won't be singled out. Peggy and Maggie realize too late that they can't apologize to Wanda because she has left, but Maggie vows she will never stand by and watch someone picked on again.
Looking back on this story, I realized that it is one of the best books about bullying. When I read it though, bullying wasn't a term we used. Nor were terms like peer pressure or self-esteem. It wasn't something discussed in the detail that it is now. Kids picked on kids and, for the most part, you just dealt with it. We have much more of an awareness now, but as I was growing up and certainly when this book was written, it wasn't a subject we talked about.
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