Bullying tackled through the comics

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A lot of kids are dreading that a new school year is beginning, and it has nothing to do with schoolwork.

Instead, it’s because school is where, for them, the bully or bullies are.

Sometimes it helps if the ideas for remedies to a problem come from an unexpected source. In my experience, that way kids are more likely to take notice.

That’s why I like “Bullying Is No Laughing Matter” (Front Edge Publishing, $15). This 8½x11 paperback has 36 artists coming together to discuss bullying through their comic strips. Comics are accessible, kid-friendly, a comfortable spot to discuss a difficult subject.

In the first part, different comic book artists show panels of their strips where they’ve taken on bullying from a number of different perspectives. There also are essays where the artists provide encouragement and sometimes tell their own memories of being bullied as a child. Some are pretty funny, like Broom-Hilda’s (Russell Myers) solution to the bully taking a kid’s lunch. Others are poignant and show bullying takes many forms, like being the kid who is excluded, as Stone Soup (Jan Eliot) illustrates. Mama’s Boyz (Jerry Craft) offers a reminder that sometimes kids don’t even know they are being bullies.

When you flip it over, there is an entire graphic novel dealing with bullying starring college-age super hero The Cardinal. (It’s written with an older child or teen in mind.) The Cardinal’s creator, Kurt J. Kolka, tells his experience with bullies and candidly looks at the situation. Kolka tells readers that in looking back, he sees that telling a trusted adult could have helped him. (Also, one of the threads through that story is inspired by the real-life bullying story of Camille Paddock, 2014 Miss Teen Illinois International, who shares what happened to her as well.)

This is a good resource for a child who is being bullied as well as those who are not. Sometimes bullying persists because other kids don’t know how to stand up to the bully without becoming the next target. It would be a great classroom or school library resource as well.

— Sue Ontiveros

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