The Jungle Bully – Textless big book – Ages 3–8

The jungle bully is a beautifully illustrated textless big book dealing with the subject of bullying.

A small monkey is bullied by other monkeys in his community and, feeling sad, runs away to be by himself. Seeing a group of happy animals, he decides to take his frustrations out on a harmless gorilla, and does this while the gorilla’s friends are distracted or sleeping. Although much bigger than the monkey, the gorilla doesn’t retaliate; but rather than remain silent, he finds his friends and tells them what happened to him. The animals decide to confront the monkey and talk about what he did to their friend.

The monkey, now realising the gorilla has a support network, appears worried about what they will do to him. The animals give the monkey a chance to tell his side of the story and are saddened by what they hear. The gorilla and monkey are left to discuss how they can move forward and how the gorilla and his friends can support the monkey.

They come up with a plan where all the animals can work together so they can all enjoy the jungle and keep the monkey safe.

Textless big books are a wonderful way to build oral language skills and provide an easy transition into more formalised reading.