What do children think of the grown-ups in their life who are always setting rules and giving directives? This book is from a child's point-of-view, as it describes children's view of the "mean people" in their lives. This book made me think of the importance of the tone of our voice when we speak to children. ( )

The Book of Mean People is written by a bunny who writes down all of the mean people he has met. In his book he acknowledges that mean people come in all shapes and sizes, making all kinds of faces, talking soft and loudly, and so on. The main character acknowledges that people are mean for all types of reason, even when they are not meaning to be mean. However, in the end the main character realizes that although the people surrounding him are mean, he can live his life smiling and not being mean anyway. The book is written and illustrated with two page spreads. The Book of Mean People can teach readers how to overcome dealing with those who are mean by turning the other cheek and going on living life as a nice person, although everyone else may be "mean." ( )

It is about from the perspective of a young anthropomorphized bunny addressing who he thinks is mean in his life and the different forms that meanness can take. From adults that give confusing and often contradicting directives to those who fails to see things from your perspective.

This book validates the perspective of a child. Highlights the ways that adults get irritated with kids unnecessarily instead of explaining the situation properly. It also encourages children to keep their happy disposition despite how many frowning adults are in their life. Love this book, I remember there being a disagreement between my mom and other parents about the appropriateness of this book in the classroom, they thought the book encourage children to think of their parents and other adults as mean. ( )

The author is just telling the reader about different kind of meaning's of being mean.How the children identifies what some said. So that children can know what the mean.
Age group 3-4
Pierce college library

The Book of Mean People, by Toni and Slade Morrison, was a book about a little rabbit who thinks lots of people are mean to him. He has a book full of all the mean people in the world and why they are mean. I enjoyed this book, but parts of it made me feel uneasy. A child should never feel his grandparents are mean or his teacher, but this book includes both which I don't think they should have done, without explaining they can be nice too. One element of the story I enjoyed was the plot. I felt it had a good story line of going through the book, explaining how he feels and why. I also felt that it expressed all the feelings kids have towards other people, but promotes them to smile even when others are mean. Another aspect I enjoyed was the pictures, they were a bit scary at times, but they expressed the feels and emotions very well. One perfect example of this was when these two bunnies are whispering mean things you can see it on their faces they are saying mean things about the other bunny, great illustrations. The last aspect of the story I enjoyed was the language used, it was very repetitive in its sentence structure. I felt this was a good addition for young readers, because most of the sentences started with the same starting lines. Overall a good book that I will use in my text set, but I'm not sure of the big picture, maybe be nice to others.