Goodness Gracious, Gulliver Mulligan

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

Gulliver Mulligan is a big kid. In fact, he is twice as large as the
next biggest child in his class. Although his teachers say, “Goodness
gracious, Gulliver Mulligan. Never in my life have I seen such a large
child! How wonderful to be big!” to him, they also say, “Poor
Gulliver Mulligan. Gulliver Mulligan has no friends” to each
other—and they are right. Gulliver is taunted by some classmates for
being so big. Most of them, however, merely keep their distance and as a
result Gulliver is a very lonely boy. One day, a new student named
Mortimer Goss is introduced by the principal, Mrs. Pumpkinhead. Mortimer
is the exact opposite of Gulliver. He is tiny and timorous. The two boys
remain outsiders to the classmates and even to each other until one day,
during a field trip, Gulliver helps Mortimer after the tiny lad becomes
stuck in a hollow log. Suddenly Gulliver is a school hero and, best of
all, he now has his own best friend, Mortimer.

Although the book’s basic plot suffers from a certain degree of
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer predictability, there is still much to
admire in the way the author tells the story. Browne works in multiple
levels of detail and plot twists that give her characters real depth.
Nugent’s vibrant illustrations are stunning. Recommended.