14 Books on Bullying That Will Teach Your Kids How to Cope and Overcome

One of the oldest and most beloved tales about bullying, The Story of Ferdinand follows a gentle bull who simply wants to stop and smell the flowers.

While Ferdinand is totally content just hanging out under a cork tree with his flowers, he deals with constant peer pressure — from other bulls and matadors from Madrid — to be a raging and aggressive animal.

Many times the bullies that your kids deal with at school are facing their own peer pressure to act out in a way that is hurtful to those around them. At the end of the story, Ferdinand overcomes the pressure to be different and returns to his beloved flowers.

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Llama Llama loves school and all of the friends that he is making. That is, until his classmate, Gilroy, starts teasing him and calling him names. Llama llama has to decide what to do to put an end to Gilroy's nasty attitude and possibly rekindle a friendship.

Being a school bully that the other children fear is all fun and games until you need a friend of your own. It's a tough lesson that Bruno the shark had to learn the hard way: Sometimes you need a friend's help — but if you are a bully, you will scare them all away.

Taking down a school bully can feel like an impossible feat alone but, when students band together in The Juice Box Bully to show the new kid Pete that bullying is never OK, the results are well worth it.

For many kids, the last thing that they want to do is stand out among the crowd as different. Whether it's their hair, skin color, or something as simple as their name, kids want to feel like they are just like everyone else.

I Am Enough celebrates the beauty of individuality in oneself and others. The poetically beautiful picture book encourages children to love the person they see in the mirror, while also accepting the differences of those around them instead of using them as teasing bait.

Standing by and watching one of your friends be the victim of a bully is hard — but what do you do to avoid being the next target? In the book One, the cool and calm Blue is attacked by the steamy, hot-headed Red.

One gathers his other pals, Yellow, Orange, Green, and Purple, to confront Red together. A lesson in bullying, the book One is a story about a single voice joining with others to make a large impact.

Kids have the freedom to be whoever they want to be. Maybe that's a firefighter or a horse trainer — or if your little one is like Dyson, it's a princess boy.

A story about acceptance and tolerance of the wonderful intricacies that make us all different in the most glorious way, My Princess Boy teaches children to celebrate the special details that make us who we are instead of teasing them. 

As a grown-up, you've likely witnessed how far a little empathy can go. Making an attempt to understand another person and the situation they are in is massive.

In My Camel Wants to Be a Unicorn, a sweet girl is trying to understand why her camel would want to turn into a unicorn. Packed with lessons on empathy and friendship, this book will teach your kids to choose the path of understanding rather than that of judgment and bullying.

Bullies can suck, and despite telling your kiddo to report any trace of bullying as soon as it happens, you still aren't in total control of how the teasing affects your little one's perception of themselves.

The high-energy, colorful book I Like Myself praises all of the marvelous imperfections that make your tot special. Crazy bedhead? Smelly feet? One eye is slightly bigger than the other? Whatever it may be, I Like Myself encourages your little one to love themselves from head to toe.

In the conversation surrounding the dangers of bullying, it is not often that we talk about the actual bully. In The Bad Seed, this rude, mean, bad seed has an ugly attitude that makes every other seed want to stay far away from him.

But, like most bullies, there is something brewing deep down inside that has made this seed turn so bad. When the seed confronts the reasons he acts out, he is able to turn his attitude around.

Pout-Pout Fish doesn't feel like he is strong enough to stand up to the mean shark who teases him and his friends. But, with the support of his peers and his courage that lives deep down inside, he is able to confront his bully and show him that it's better to be nice to others than to be mean and lonely.

Being labeled as weird can be just as hurtful as being called a tattle-tale or a loser. In this story, Luisa has to put up with constant teasing and bullying for simply being herself, which her bullies find to be weird.

Luisa immediately reacts to her bullies’ constant name-calling by hiding the wonderful things that make her who she is — until her parents, teachers, and friends encourage her to embrace her quirks and all of her weirdness, despite her bullies.

Monica and Katie have been friends since kindergarten, and Monica absolutely adores Katie ... when she is being nice. Katie has a habit of degrading and humiliating Monica when they are in a group of friends, and it is hurtful.

My Secret Bully is a story about frenemies and a brave girl who turns to her mom to help her put her foot down and finally reclaim her power from her secret bully.

Chrysanthemum is a beautiful name and the little mouse in this story thinks so, too — but when she heads off to school, her classmates tease her for the sweet name that she adores. Through all of the bullying, Chrysanthemum starts to wilt until she finds her inner self confidence that overcomes the teasing of her classmates.