Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bullies & Books

This short video of Rep. AOC talking to middle grade school kids inspired this story about bullying. Bullying

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bullies & Books

I remember every single kid who bullied me in grade school.

There were a few. I was rather sickly in my early years, a bony kid who others would call ‘Olive Oyl’ to underline my rail thin frame. I also had a name that no other kid in my grade school of 1,000 kids had, Marla. In a sea of Marys’, Kathys’ and Sues’, Marla was the perfect name to make fun of and a ‘gang’ of boys in the fifth grade did; almost constantly each time I entered our school hallways. For half of the school year, at least, it lasted.

So I grew up hating bullies. As a mom and as a creative whose skill set includes writing, thematically, I have always gravitated toward underdog stories. My dad, whose temperament I inherited, gave me my first lessons on handling bullies. My older sister, in eight grade at that time, was bullied by ‘the cool kids’ in our school. Back then they were a group of boys playing football and the girls devoted to them.  My sister was positioned on the outskirts of that ‘cool kid’ crowd. I won’t share how they bullied her, that’s her story to tell, but what my dad did, once he got wind of it, is my story to tell and one I’ll never forget. After hearing the details at dinner one night, he headed over the house known as their gathering place. I tagged along and so glad I did. What I witnessed that night became my primer on handling bullies.  Find their weak spot and go after it. Bullies hate that. He did that night and by the time we left, that group of oversized eighth grade football players didn’t look so ‘oversized’ anymore.  He left them speechless; their complexions whiter than when we arrived.  Dad taught me that night, you never retreat. They automatically win when you do. ‘Find their weak spot’ would serve me well when handling my own group of fifth grade bullies later on that year. The ringleader, and worst offender, couldn’t read. He sat in front of me and he really couldn’t read. His weak spot. So I figured out a way to help him and I did. The bullying stopped.

Now I have grandkids and I hear their stories about kids and bullying. It’s a right of passage among middle grade school kids to either be a perpetrator or victim of bullying.  The roots of bullying are critical to understand and no author I’ve ever read does a better job of telling this story, not easy to navigate through, in her award winning WONDER.  RJ Palacio is a Knopf author whose storytelling is penned for middle school readers. Don’t let that stop you from reading it. You won’t be ‘bored’ or ‘talked down to’ in any way.

WONDER has won too many awards to list; a list that includes all the major ones. My ten-year-old twin grands recommended WONDER. I took it home and gobbled it up. Then they recommended her follow up novel, AUGGIE and Me: three wonder stories. I’m gobbling that up now.

WONDER tells the story of a boy whose face was significantly disfigured from birth. His name is Auggie and he’s a really smart fifth grader who transfers to a new school and that’s where this story starts. One of the identified bullies is Julian, and by the end of WONDER, readers surely wonder, why is he so mean?

In RJ Palacio’s follow up story, Auggie and Me: Three WONDER Stories, the three kids featured in WONDER tell their own stories. Auggie’s bully, Julian, tells his story that I won’t  share here except to say, bullies’ bad behavior is usually rooted in their own experiences of being bullied.

Stories have the potential to teach and help heal deep hurts. If I were queen of the universe? I would insist that not only every middle school age kid read RJ Palacio’s WONDER and Auggie and ME: Three WONDER Stories, their parents must read these two novels, too. After all, we lead by example.

Share this: