A01=Patty Brozo
A12=Mike Deas
Author_Mike Deas
Author_Patty Brozo
being left out
bench
buddy
bullying
Category=YFMF
Category=YFS
Category=YXHB
children as agents of change
citizen project
emotions
empathy
eq_bestseller
eq_childrens
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_personal-social-topics
eq_teenage-young-adult
feelings
forthcoming
friends
friendship
imagination
kids
kindness
lonely
playground
playmates
recess
school
schoolyard
social and emotional learning
Product details
- ISBN 9780884486985
- Dimensions: 127 x 203mm
- Publication Date: 04 Aug 2026
- Publisher: Tilbury House,U.S.
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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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.
Patty Brozo has been writing stories for and about children since taking creative writing classes in college. She is the author of Miss Pinkeltink’s Purse and The Buddy Bench. Mike Deas (Salt Spring Island, British Columbia) worked as a concept artist, texture artist, and art lead in the video game industry in England and California before returning to his native Canada. He is the illustrator of The Buddy Bench, Gloria’s Big Problem, and Calvin Gets the Last Word.
