Lady Long-Legs by Jan Mark illustrated by Paul Howard

Friday Old Favourite

In my former library when teachers of Grade Two or Three students wanted to share a book with their class about bullies and bullying I would always recommend Lady Long-Legs. Nisba uses such good strategies to cope with bullying by an older student.

Nisba is new to Farm Lane School. She is a tall girl and so when she sees the pattern of coloured tiles in the hallway she naturally stretches her legs stepping only on the green ones. Lucy Wells tells Nisba this is not allowed. She tells Nisba to stop stepping on the green tiles or there will be real trouble.

Strategies:

Tell the teacher: "there are lots of brown tiles and some yellow tiles and not many green tiles. Someone said only Year 4 people can walk on the green tiles."

The teacher replies: "the rule is no jumping (hopscotch). But Year 4 people are taller, They can take bigger steps. There's no rule about that ... You're a very tall girl, Nisba ... You go ahead and walk where you like."

Lucy says: "We say you can't. ... You're a new girl. New girls can only walk on brown tiles. everyone knows that."

Nisba wisely realises: "None of them was as tall as Nisba. Suddenly she understood. They were angry because she could reach the green tiles without jumping, not because she did."

Lucy retailates by knocking Nisba down. This does not stop Nisba. "She didn't really want to walk on the green tiles all the time, but Lucy was a bully, and bullies must never be allowed to win."

Turn the taunt around. Lucy calls Nisba 'Daddy Long-Legs' but in the final scenes, when her class mates come to her defence, Nisba declares she has a new name 'Lady Long-Legs'.

Lady Long-Legs was first published in 1999 in the Sprinters series. It is now out of print but you may be lucky and find a copy in a school library. Many schools should still have the big book version of this book too.

Here are some other books illustrated by Paul Howard. Taking the Cats Way Home is also by Jan Mark and by coincidence it is also about bullies.

Care of Henry

Take a look in your local or school library you are sure to find more books by the late UK author Jan Mark. I especially recommend several of her very junior novels: 

• My Frog, and I (1997) - a terrific read aloud for Grade 1 or 2
• The Dead Letter Box (1982)
• The Snow Maze (Sprinters series) (1992)
• Taking the Cat's way home (1994)