Local News - Mullica students learn realities of bullying from best-selling author

By ROB SPAHR Staff Writer | Posted: Thursday, March 11, 2010 | 5 comments

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 stop it. But the rest were dreadfully misguided."

Years later, Blanco finally had the confidence to tell her story. And the subsequent novel, "Please Stop Laughing at Me...," became a New York Times Bestseller practically overnight.

"I never expected my book to be a runaway bestseller," said Blanco, adding that it did so in just 48 hours. "But when it did, I started getting contacted from kids all over the country who were also the victims of bullies. That's when I became a survivor/activist."

Blanco spent several hours at the Mullica Township Middle School discussing the issue of bullying. She started the day meeting with the school's book club, made up of seventh- and eighth-grade girls, over lunch before speaking to a gymnasium full of students from the Mullica Township and Green Bank schools. After school, she was scheduled to give her talk to the school's faculty, and then she was scheduled to give it again to the students' parents at night.

Mullica Township Middle School Principal Brenda Harring-Marro read "Please Stop Laughing at Me" and then reached out to the author to come speak to her students.

"I was looking to get students talking about the issue of bullying," said Harring-Marro, adding that bullying wasn't a major problem at the school, but she felt it was an issue every school should discuss. "Anyone who thinks that bullying doesn't happen in their school is kidding themselves. It is adolescent behavior."

And Blanco's presentation was sure to get them talking.

She started her talk by explaining in detail how and why the perpetrators of the Columbine High School massacre felt they had no choice but to kill the "popular" kids and then kill themselves. After which she told the students that she initially felt bad for the killers - not their victims.

That bloody incident, she said, was her motivation to write her book.

Blanco also told the students how she once planned to use a butcher knife to slice up her face because people called her ugly, that she was labeled a "retard lover" for sticking up for a mentally challenged classmate, and how she would come home about three days a week with spit balls covered in glue stuck to her hair by bullies.

She also told the book club how showing her breasts to a boy while on a family trip to Greece was one of the turning points in her life.

The book itself is equally blunt - going into graphic detail about some of the more heinous bullying she was subjected to and printing expletive-laden taunts.

"I'm a parent too and I believe the best way to help kids overcome bullying is not to protect them from it, but to prepare them for it," Blanco said. "The best preparation is honesty."

Harring-Marro said Blanco's "honesty" was appropriate for the middle school audience.

"I opened it to seventh- and eighth-graders because I knew it was material that fit those age groups all the way through high school. And we approached it from a mature angle," she said. "And when something of that nature came up during our meetings, it was handled the same way. There was no laughing or giggling. ... I think the kids were more frustrated and angry, than anything, to learn that that level of bullying exists."

The point of Blanco's visit - which Harring-Marro said cost about $5,000, funded in part by No Child Left Behind grant money - and the book club reading, and discussing, her book was to enlighten the young readers, their teachers and their parents about just how horrible bullying can get.

That mission was clearly accomplished.

"There is some teasing and stuff like that that goes on in our school, but I've never seen anything close to what she went through," said Julianna Colon, 12, a seventh-grader from Mullica Township. "But now I know that just because I've never seen it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And sometimes it's just as mean not to do something nice for someone, like including them in things or not sticking up for them when they are being picked on."

"It was a life-changing experience just to read her book. I never thought in a million years that I'd ever get to meet her," said Jessica Pierson, 14, an eighth-grader from Mullica Township. "You'd expect someone who was bullied that bad to be shy. But (she was) really nice and really, really funny."

Contact Robert Spahr:   609-272-7283   RSpahr@pressofac.com

Posted in ATLANTIC on Thursday, March 11, 2010 8:52 pm