The Bully Book by Eric Kahn Gale (review)

Sixth-grader Eric Haskins is having the worst year ever. Abandoned by his best friend, teased by his classmates, and victimized daily by bullies, he struggles to understand his inexplicable social decline, until he learns about The Bully Book. The Bully Book, a secret manual passed down to a chosen few each year, explains how to manipulate fellow students for social control and popularity, and Eric has been assigned its key role, the sacrificial Grunt. With the help of Grunts from other grades, he hunts down the Book, and as he uncovers its history, he observes the long-term suffering that being the Grunt can bring and learns the importance of defending himself. Part mystery, part journal, part how-to guide for bullies, this dark read explores the impact of bullying in painful, emotionally wrenching detail, tempered with moments of friendship and even humor. Eric is a worthy hero, and readers will revel in watching him fight his outsider status, even as they suffer with him through a series of humiliations at the hands of his tormentors. The book is nakedly didactic, though, and the bullying manual itself, interspersed with Eric’s journal, is less authentically realized than Eric’s own narration; since the manual’s voice is adult in its inflections, never really sounding like a middle-grader, it’s both implausible and considerably more disturbing. Still, the idea that popularity and bullying are part of a vast but alterable conspiracy is an attractive one, likely to appeal to many readers, and the book works well as a conversation-starter about bullying and the value of standing up for yourself.