Bully, by Patricia Polacco

Lyla, a new girl,  arrives at middle school for the first day.  She finds a loyal friend in Jamie, a kind-hearted techie boy.  Another groups of students - Gage, Kenyon, and Maeve - sit at the "celebrity table" and fascinate Lyla even as they completely ignore her.  After some passive aggressive looks from the "celebrities," Lyla finally begins to draw their attention.  She continues to make the top grades and makes the cheerleading squad.  Jamie warns her about Gage, Kenyon, and Maeve but when they invite her to sit at the celebrity table and hang out with them after school Lyla ignores his better judgment.  These popular girls begin to make fun of several kids in the school, using social media to cyber-bully them.

When they begin to direct this bad treatment to Lyla's real friend, Jaime, Lyla makes difficult choices and begins to spend less time with them.  Eventually, she stands up for Jamie, saying, "Jamie Aldrich is no court jester... he's one of my best friends... You and your friends are nothing but bullies!"

But no one dumps these girls!  They're out for revenge!  After standing up to the bullies, Gage, Kenyon, and Maeve implicate Lyla in the theft of school testing material and use social media to turn the whole school against her.  Eventually the true bonds of friendship and truth telling prevail.  The book ends, bullies exposed, and readers posed a marked question, "What would you do?"  The words are bolded, inviting the reader to enter into active dialogue about the issue of bullying.

This explicit invitation, the realistic modern setting and use of technology, and the honest, relevant way the book is written sparked great conversation about bullying, especially cyber bullying.

                

To extend conversation, students read literature that helps them to identify bullying and offers practical steps for responding to cyber bullying.  After reading, we discussed and came up with a class action plan for dealing with bullying.

http://www.stopbullying.gov/cyberbullying/what-is-it/
http://pbskids.org/itsmylife/friends/bullies/print_article6.html
http://www.stopbullying.gov/kids/what-you-can-do/index.html
http://www.stopbullying.gov/kids/facts/index.html
http://m.kidshealth.org/parent/emotions/behavior/bullies.html