 
|
What happens to a bully when she doesn’t want to be a bully anymore? Jill MacLean answers this question in her newest book, The Hidden Agenda of Sigrid Sugden. Readers will already be familiar with the characters from the first two books in the trilogy about the Newfoundland towns of Ratchet and Fiddler’s Cover—The Nine Lives of Travis Keating and The Present Tense of Prinny Murphy. In this book, 12-year-old Sigrid Sugden realizes that her bullying is out of control, and she decides to change her ways.
Sigrid is a Shrike. “I’m a Shrike, one of three bullies who specialize in extortion.” (p. 27) The Shrikes are a group of three girls (Sigrid, Tate Cody and Mel Corkum) who torment their fellow classmates by blackmailing them. When the Shrikes force Prinny Murphy to risk her life to escape them, Sigrid realizes that her bullying is out of control. She decides she doesn’t want to be a bully anymore. However, changing is not as easy as it sounds.
As she tries to befriend the classmates she once tormented, Sigrid is rejected time and again. She also faces the hatred of her former Shrike “friends” who want to get even with her for betraying them by saving Prinny’s life. As a result, she is very lonely. Her only friend is 14-year-old Hud Quinn, who is also a bully. Her family has also abandoned her. Her parents are divorced; her father lives far away, and her mother is rarely home. Her brother, Lorne, is constantly visiting his girlfriend, and her stepfather always seems to have other things to do. How will Sigrid survive the long and lonely summer?
Jill MacLean has written a beautiful book about redemption. Sigrid is a flawed but very resilient character who has decided to change her life. She fell into bullying because of her own loneliness when her best friend, Hanna, moved away. Becoming part of the Shrikes was an easy way to gain acceptance into a group—even if it was a group of bullies. When Sigrid decides to overcome her past, she faces an uphill battle. Her former victims do not trust her, and they do not respond to her attempts at friendship. Her situation seems hopeless; however, her determination shines through as she persists in her quest for redemption.
Bullying is a pervasive issue in our schools and in our society today. Victims of bullying report severe consequences such as stress-related health concerns, sleeping disorders, anxiety, depression, and absenteeism from school. Bullies can also suffer from some of these consequences. MacLean’s novel explores how a bully can stop being a bully. The process is not an easy one, because the characters involved are complex with complicated lives of their own.
Although most of the characters in The Hidden Agenda of Sigrid Sugden have just graduated from grade 6, they are facing many difficult issues including abusive parents, grief and crippling loneliness. This novel explores several important themes including: self-respect, friendship, trust, forgiveness, loneliness, child abuse, persistence and grief. Readers who are not familiar with the first two novels in this series—The Nine Lives of Travis Keating and The Present Tense of Prinny Murphy—will definitely want to read them after reading this book!
|
|
The Hidden Agenda of Sigrid Sugden