J is for justice.

How surprising is it, really, that bullied kids bring guns to school? If you were to pay close attention to what passes for justice in our popular media today, you would pick up a very extreme lesson on what's considered fair.

WE HAD A CLASS BULLY IN EIGHTH GRADE, A big-boned, slack-jawed boy who liked to talk with his hands. Once, during lunch recess, I said something that offended his delicate sensibilities and got a little pummeled into the playground dirt as a reward. Humiliated by this public trouncing, and by having to be rescued by Sister Katherine Marie, I prayed that someday my assailant would "get what was coming to him"--and I didn't mean an "A" in Phys. Ed.

Years later in a college philosophy class I learned that Thomas Aquinas had taught that the virtue of justice was "the determined will to render the other his or her due." Was that, I wondered, what I had been feeling on the playground that day, the noble virtue of justice? Was it justice that made me cry out for my pound of flesh? If so, it felt like a pretty nasty and narrow version of it. What I had been hoping for in the schoolyard wasn't so much justice as vengeance.

From the looks of things, schoolyard bullies have been provoking a good deal of vengeance in the past few years. A study last fall by the National Threat Assessment Center found that in more than two thirds of 37 recent school shootings, youngsters who fired on their classmates and teachers complained that they had been persecuted by other kids. And while bullying is by no means the only cause of school shootings, increasingly educators and legislators are worried about the daily intimidation faced by millions of America's school children and what may be a rising tide of vengeance. The National Association of School Psychologists reports that every day 160,000 youngsters stay home from school to avoid being bullied--and it looks like a tiny-but-growing fraction of these kids are coming to school armed for a little retribution.

PERHAPS KIDS TAKE UP ARMS AGAINST THEIR PERSECUTORS because they see a lot of this narrow version of justice on TV, particularly in the crime and courtroom dramas that make up so much of our prime-time entertainment. In cop shows like Law and Order, NYPD Blue, Nash Bridges, The District, and Walker, Texas Ranger, justice is mostly about finding and punishing all the classroom bullies who have grown up to be murderers, thieves, and drug dealers. The same is true of the real crime shows like American Justice, America's Most Wanted, and Cops, which, week after week, show us brave and burly police officers busting down doors and wrestling felons into the dirt. Even on all those literate, brilliant British detective shows on Mystery, the justice being offered up is retributive justice--justice that makes certain all the bad folks get what's coming to them.

Sometimes, on a show like The Practice, we get a slightly different perspective. Here the cops and prosecutors are the opponents, and the wily defense attorneys and their (occasionally innocent) clients are the heroes or victims. But even on this program the action takes place in a criminal courtroom, reminding us that justice is primarily a matter of identifying and punishing the guilty.

It's only on shows like Family Law and Judging Amy that justice is taken out of the criminal courtroom and thus seems to be about more than guilt or innocence, punishment or retribution. On these programs, which are about a woman's law firm and a female judge, the question is normally not about sentencing, but about discovering "What is in the best interest of the children?" For, like Portia, the female judge in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, these attorneys and jurists have discovered that justice is not always about getting our pound of flesh. Rather, real justice must include mercy, forgiveness, and wisdom. Otherwise, it degenerates into vengeance.

STILL, FOR A REALLY RICH GRASP OF JUSTICE, CHILDREN AND parents would probably do well to turn off the silver screen and pick up a golden book. As many parents already know, children's books usually boast a much fuller understanding of the virtue we need to "work and play well with others"--which is pretty much what Plato thought justice was.

For example, one of the most important parts of justice is learning to share. Both Aristotle and contemporary Catholic social teaching refer to this as "distributive justice," and teach that each of us has to do our part and is entitled to a fair portion of life's goods. But lots of 3- to 8-year-olds who have never read a social encyclical or the Nicomachean Ethics have read plenty of good books about sharing.

My all-time favorite "share" book is Stone Soup by Marcia Brown (Aladdin Paperbacks), a multiplication-of-loaves tale about a roving band of soldiers who help some hungry townsfolk share a feast fit for a king.

But there's also The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister (North-South Books), a beautifully illustrated story about a rather prideful fish who learns to share his gorgeous scales with less colorful creatures of the sea. Then there's Pat Hutchins' The Doorbell Rang (Greenwillow), a comic tale about the pleasures of hospitality and sharing a flesh batch of cookies. And of course Julius, the Baby of the World (Mulberry) by Kevin Henkes teaches a valuable lesson about sharing that every sibling needs to learn. For when Lily's baby brother, Julius, arrives to rave parental reviews, this older sister has to find a place in her heart for the new kid in the cradle.

Justice, according to Catholic social thought, is also about the common good--thinking and caring about others and not just ourselves. Like Saint Paul told the Corinthians, each of us has distinctive gifts and talents that the Body of Christ needs to grow and flourish. You can find plenty of children's stories about team-spirited creatures who contribute to the common good.

In Swimmy (Alfred A. Knopf), by Leo Lionni, the title character is a small black fish who belongs to a school of red fish that gets eaten by a roving tuna. Escaping with his life, Swimmy joins another frightened school of little fish, and figures out an ingenious way to organize them so that they won't become bait for the big fish. Teaching a similar lesson, Lionni's Frederick (Knopf) recounts the tale of a mouse laureate who may not be as good a food-gatherer as his little buddies, but whose poetry keeps all the other mice warm and happy through the winter of their discontent.

And in David McKee's little classic, Elmer (Lothrop Lee & Shepard), we learn about a multicolored elephant who feels as out of place as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, but who soon discovers that his gift of humor and laughter enriches the life of the whole herd.

BUT THE HEART OF JUSTICE--AT LEAST God's justice, as we find it in the Bible--is mercy, whether it's the compassion shown to the weak or the forgiveness shared with other sinners. Children's stories are chock-full of this merciful justice, teaching us to love those in need and let go of past hurts. In John Steptoe's retelling of the Native American legend of The Story of Jumping Mouse (Lothrop, Lee & Shepard), we meet a compassionate little mouse who gives away all his gifts to relieve the sufferings of others. And in Katie Couric and Marjorie Priceman's more recent The Brand New Kid (Doubleday), two young school girls discover that kindness is the only magic needed to transform a stranger into a friend. Meanwhile, the lesson for children--and adults--in Sam Bratney and Jennifer Eachus' I'm Sorry (HarperCollins) is that forgiveness, not fences, makes good neighbors, while Mem Fox and Mafia Frazee's Harriet, You'll Drive Me Wild (Harcourt)--a wonderfully comic tale about a loveable-but-exasperating daughter and her occasionally frayed mom--makes it clear that we all need a little forgiveness from time to time.

Retribution is the thinnest part of justice, and justice that consists only of punishing the guilty is too mean a virtue to help us work and play well with others. After all, we've had three decades of "lock 'em up and throw away the key" in this country, and aside from the dubious honor of being the world's biggest jailer, what has it gotten us?

And the most effective anti-bullying programs in our schools are not the ones that focus on punishing bullies, but the ones that teach children to break the cycle of harassment, intimidation, and revenge by getting help, walking away, staying calm, using mediation, and employing a range of other nonviolent techniques.

And as exciting and dramatic as cop and crime shows are, we need to be suspicious of the diet of virtue they serve up. For a fully balanced banquet of justice, I'd recommend that families spice up their entertainment with a bookshelf of children's tales about sharing, hospitality, generosity, compassion, and forgiveness. Ask your kids to share some of theirs with you. Oh: and remember not to smudge them, and to put them back when you're done. That's part of justice, too.