I've written the third and final in my children's book series about bullying. So far, only my 10 year old niece and 8 year old nephew have read it (it passed!) and it heads to my editor in September.
After it is edited, I will be sending out the illustrated chapters to my advance reading team. Let me know if you want to be a part of that.
But let’s make it all year!
This week is Bullying-Free NZ Week. The theme is 'whakanuia tōu āhua ake! celebrating being us' and culminates with the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand Pink Shirt Day this Friday 17 May. Schools and whanau can find lots of resources to support our kids at www.bullyingfree.nz
— hat tip to The Worry Bug Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/TheWorryBug
It seems that bullying is a big problem in New Zealand and not just in schools:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/112627263/our-workplace-bullying-shame
I was bullied as a child and I’ve never forgotten how lousy that felt. It is what inspired me to write FAB Club.
FAB Club is available on Amazon, iBooks, Kobo, Fishpond, Whitcoulls, Booktopia, Barnes & Noble and in all good book shops and libraries.
My new book arrived this week. It is always a bit scary designing something from thousands of miles away and hoping it will turn out okay. Fortunately, it is exactly the way I had hoped it would be.
My editor and Advance Reading Team have made this a great book. Head to Amazon if you want to take a closer look.
After FAB (Friends Against Bullying) Club was well received by kids, I wrote a sequel, FAB Club 2 - Friends Against Cyberbullying.
My editor said it was the book she would have liked to have read as a child. If you know any kids who are being bullied, they might like to read it too.
FAB Club 2 is currently available on Amazon.com and other Amazons, with more outlets coming soon.
I was bullied at school and I remember it vividly. It was one of the reasons I wrote FAB (Friends Against Bullying) Club. .
The Press in Christchurch (now calling itself Stuff, unfortunately) is doing a series this week about bullying and it makes disturbing reading. There are ways to prevent bullying, but it seems those methods are not being implemented across New Zealand schools.
“One in four Kiwi kids are bullied at school – a rate that’s barely improved in the last 15 years and is more than double the OECD average. ”
And:
“New Zealand has the second worst rate of school bullying in the developed world after Latvia – and more than double the OECD average, according to a 2015 survey by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Depending on the global studies consulted, between 20 and 50 per cent of Kiwi schoolchildren are bullied.
Government data suggests rates of bullying have only decreased 3 per cent since 2013, and a 30-year study indicates bullied children are four times more likely to contemplate suicide as adults. Bullies are twice as likely.”
I hope this spurs more action, but I feel newspapers aren't as influential as they once were.
