Everyone always teases Lois Waller for being chubby and for crying about absolutely everything. Elizabeth knows that Lois is a nice kid, even if she is scared to do things that the rest of their second grade class finds simple, so she decides to try to help Lois to fit in.

Lois is the last of the children to take the training wheels off her bike, so first Elizabeth teaches her to ride without them. Lois falls off her bike more than once, but is determined to keep trying, even with scraped hands.

Elizabeth’s attentions do nothing to stop the bullying of the other children in her class. Encouraged by Lila, and embarrassed by the suggestion that she might like Lois too, Jessica joins in with the teasing. She, Lila and Ellen Riteman pretend to cry like Lois, much to the delight of the other kids. Angry, Elizabeth invites Lois to come over the next day.

Jessica has Lila visiting the same afternoon, so they walk with Elizabeth and Lois, along with Steven and Todd Wilkins. Steven joins in the bullying (Todd has been participating from the start) and Jess and Lila dare Lois to climb a neighbour’s apple tree. Despite her fear, Lois tries to do so, but freezes when still close to the ground.

Then she spots a kitten stuck in the higher branches of the tree and, wanting to help it, manages to climb to its rescue. The neighbour comes out and yells for a bit before helping Lois out of the tree and sending the children home to the Wakefield house with a barrel-load of apples. The kids all think Lois was clever to rescue the kitten and play nicely with her for the rest of the afternoon, with no bullying in sight.

This is quite an entertaining book, but the bullying in here is quite horrific and I really found it difficult to read. I also felt like Mrs. Otis is quite negligent (here and in other books) when it comes to protecting Lois from the awful behaviour of her peers. There’s a real sense that no one will intercede in a useful fashion; it’s just up to Lois to stop being scared. (Never mind that being so dreadfully bullied would contribute to Lois’s fears in a very real way. The poor kid would have a genuine anxiety disorder at this point for sure.) Is it realistic? Absolutely. Is it what small children should be reading? I’m not so sure.

One thing I found interesting was the obvious (to an adult reader) suggestion that Lois’s mother was responsible for a lot of Lois’s fears. I wish that had been made clearer to the younger readers of the book.

Also interesting is that here the ‘good’ characters are bullies along with the ‘bad’ ones. We expect Lila and Jess to be mean girls, but here Todd and Winston are just as cruel. There’s a good point to be made there, but the book falls short of making it.