Review - The Buddy Bench

The Buddy Bench
by Patty Brozo
illustrated by Mike Deas
Date: 2019
Publisher: Tilbury House Publishers
Reading level: C
Book type: picture book
Pages: 36
Format: e-book
Source: library

Having seen what being left out is like, children become agents of change, convincing their teacher to let them build a buddy bench.

A school playground can be a solitary place for a kid without playmates; in one survey, 80 percent of 8- to 10-year-old respondents described being lonely at some point during a school day.

Patty Brozo’s cast of kids brings a playground to raucous life, and Mike Deas’s illustrations invest their games with imaginary planes to fly, dragons to tame, and elephants to ride. And these kids match their imaginations with empathy, identifying and swooping up the lonely among them.

Buddy benches are appearing in schoolyards around the country. Introduced from Germany in 2014, the concept is simple: When a child sits on the bench, it’s a signal to other kids to ask him or her to play.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I'd actually never heard of a "buddy bench" before reading this book. It's a neat concept. Basically, the playground has a bench where kids can go and sit if they need someone to play with; if other kids see someone sitting there, they should ask them to play.

The rhyming story is engaging (although the meter is a bit clunky in places). The colourful illustrations show a wide variety of children at play. There's a note at the back about the origin of buddy benches, too.

Even if a child's school doesn't have a buddy bench, this book might make them think about classmates who are sitting on the sidelines. And maybe this will inspire some kids to push for buddy benches in their own schoolyards!

Quotable moment:

Premise: 4/5
Meter: 3/5
Writing: 3/5
Illustrations: 3/5
Originality: 4/5

Enjoyment: 4/5

Overall: 3.57 out of 5