New neighbour Lily Jean enters the lives of sisters Carly and Sandy in perfectly obnoxious form. With a smug smile that stretches from ear to ear, she is a mini-Cleopatra sprawled out on her throne (an armchair) carried by two dutiful minions (moving men). Upon arriving, Lily Jean leads the sisters in various games of make-believe. When Lily Jean repeatedly attempts to exclude young Carly, the two sisters use a game of house to teach Lily Jean a lesson.

Lily Jean is one convincing brat. With her upturned nose, barking commands, and a syrupy grin you would give anything to wipe away, she does the likes of Nellie Olsen and Josie Pye proud. Kids and adults alike will love to loathe her and will easily see connections to the Lily Jeans in their own lives.

Yes, turning the tables on a bully may seem like a stale old plot, but You’re Mean, Lily Jean possesses several refreshing traits that save it from both cliché and the dreaded d-word of children’s books (didacticism, that is). Author Frieda Wishinsky deftly gives Lily Jean a taste of her own medicine without any winks or nudges to young readers. While the lesson here is of the “treat others the way you want to be treated” variety, it is cleverly supported by the narrative and by Lily Jean’s realistically irksome bossiness.

Wishinsky has also imbued her young female protagonists with a laudable amount of chutzpah. In addition to the traditionally girly pursuit of playing house, the trio participates in some decidedly non-domestic games of dragons and knights, mountain climbers, and astronauts. Kady MacDonald Denton’s illustrations marry the cartoony, frenetic feel of Quentin Blake to the calm and sweetness of watercolours to create girls that are at once mischievous, expressive, and sensitive.

The world of make-believe can be all-consuming for young people, and this book does a stellar job of exploring this theme without making the squabbles that arise feel petty, inconsequential, or worse, explicitly educational. Lily Jean is mean, but deliciously so.