Beating Bully O'Brien

Ten-year-old Rocky Ryan is a viola player and committed to nonviolence — which makes it hard when new classmate Tink O'Brien starts beating him up regularly after school. Karen Mueller Coombs doesn't flinch from the reality of bullying, including the physical intimidation, but she steers the story toward understanding rather than retaliation. The music teacher subplot that helps Rocky grasp what's driving Tink is what Publishers Weekly singled out — calling it the element that transforms an otherwise modest story into a worthwhile read. That's an honest summary: the baseline plot is familiar middle-grade territory, and wider critical coverage is thin. But the empathy-first resolution and the use of music as a character anchor make this a genuinely useful book for kids navigating the same terrain.