Bullying from the What Do You Know About? series is for younger readers and uses cartoon stories to illustrate bullying behaviour that can happen in any school, interspersing episodes with explanatory text. The list of contact numbers is dated, but the content is sound and the advice sympathetic.

DEALING WITH BULLYING. By Yvette Solomon and John Coleman. Wayland pound;4.99. Age range 10-16. Tel: 01273 722561.

First published in 1994, this book has been fully updated and remains a sensitive resource, more appealing to victims than perpetrators, using a wide spectrum of believable, verbal cameos. The photographs are excellent and the text is thoughtful and caring.

Encouragement to stop accepting bullying abounds, as does permission to keep telling until someone really listens. Strategies for action are plentiful and realistic.

TIME WILL TELL. Produced by David Ward. Autumn Video Productions. Tel: 0116 279 2253. Age range: 10-14.

This video was developed for schools in York. It centres on a time traveller from the year 2075, sent back to reverse today’s bullying behaviour, who ultimately succeeds by “freezing” the action and forcing the main character to read his school’s anti-bullying policy. The 12-year-olds viewing the video with me were more tolerant than I was of the unconvincing storyline (what’s the point of such policies if pupils don’t know what they say?) but were sent almost to sleep by its slow, stilted delivery.

Adrian King is a health education consultant