I’m so excited to have Mrs. P of MrsP.com as my guest author today. Her passion is getting kids writing and she runs the very popular MrsP.com Be-a-Famous Writer Contest. Today, though, she’s here to talk about bullying prevention and the role that writing can play for kids. I hope you enjoy it!
p.s. You can also find her on Twitter @MrsPStorytime!
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October is National Bullying Prevention Month, a time when schools and organizations across the country can bring awareness and open up a dialog about the impact of bullying. Since I am interacting with teachers and parents daily with my free reading website, I wanted to be able to join in these efforts aimed at educating ourselves and the young people in our lives.
Over 3.2 million students are victims of bullying each year and it doesn’t discriminate across socio-economic, racial/ethnic, or cultural lines. Bullying can begin as early as preschool and intensify during transitional stages, such as starting school in 1st grade or going into middle school. And as children grow and become involved in using social-media, cyber bullying can become another factor for them to contend with in their daily lives. At one time or another most of us have had people say unkind things, but bullying is often a relentless or ongoing circumstance.
Writing can be a very important outlet for children, as they are often the introverts that are the targets of bullies. Writing can help them put into words feelings that may be difficult to say out loud. Several years ago, one of the children who entered my annual Be-a-Famous Writer Contest wrote a story about an incident that happened at her school in kindergarten. While it wasn’t the winner of the contest, I felt compelled to film it and share the message, because she diffuses the situation in such a clever way. The story is called The Peanut Butter and Jelly Hotdog.
This year I was fortunate enough to film the first contemporary story (outside of the writing contest winners) for my Magic Library. It is also the first picture book I have filmed. Usually my stories have just a few images here and there, to spark the imaginations of the reader, but this is a true picture book. I filmed it so that there is ample time for young readers to look at the illustrations and see all that is taking place in them. The story is from Robin Robison, who most recently illustrated L. Frank Baum’s “Wizard of Oz” for Penguin Young Readers.
The story is called Wanda’s Wart and is about navigating friendship and bullying. I have created a special October playlist bringing awareness to National Bullying Prevention Month. I hope this playlist might be a resource for teachers to start a dialog with children about this difficult subject.
I mentioned the importance of writing as an outlet for children and this really was the impetus of creating my Be-a-Famous writer contest, now in its 6th year. This year’s theme of “Time Travel” allows students to escape to another time or place. It is for K-4 classrooms, and parents can be involved by letting their child’s teacher know about it. All the details can be found here.
Thank you for having me as a guest on your wonderful blog. I use it all the time as a resource for articles to share.
Lunch Every Day by Kathryn Otoshi
Every day Jimmy takes Skinny Kid’s lunch at school. Jimmy gets in trouble for his bullying but it only makes him torment Skinny Kid more. Then, he gets an invitation to Skinny Kid’s birthday party and is met with compassion. Kathryn Otoshi takes the reader into the mind and home of a bully and reveals their motivation and a possible solution for their behavior. [picture book, ages 4 and up]
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My books:
Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Food for the Future: Sustainable Farms Around the World
- Junior Library Guild Gold selection
- Massachusetts Book Award Long List
- Selected as one of 100 Outstanding Picture Books of 2023 by dPICTUS and featured at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair
- Starred review from School Library Journal
- Chicago Library’s Best of the Best
- 2023 INDIES Book of the Year Awards Finalist
- Green Earth Book Award Long List
- Imagination Soup’s 35 Best Nonfiction Books of 2023 for Kids
Amazon / Barefoot Books / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Amazon / Scholastic / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Mrs. P is wonderful! What a great post and I adore her playlists which I am off to share about now. Yippee!!
Hi Cool Mom,
Thanks so much for sharing! Mrs. P is a treasure!
What a wonderful post! I love Mrs. P. and her writing contests for children. Loved the peanut and butter and jelly hot dog sandwich story — can’t believe a five-year-old wrote it. And, I love her playlists. And thank you for creating a special bullying playlist for October.
Thanks so much Patricia! I’m a big fan of Mrs. P too! I’m so glad that social media has connected all of us!
What a great idea, to both encourage kids’ creativity and combat bullying. Thanks for sharing this. Seeing Mrs. P reminded me just a bit about Mrs. Doubtfire… so tragic that Robin Williams is no longer with us!
Hi Maria,
She does remind me of Mrs. Doubtfire too! We are lucky to have her! Thanks Mrs. P for all the good work that you do!
This story sounds great! I am so glad that bullying is taken more seriously now than it was when I was growing up.
Hi MaryAnne,
I agree with you! Bullying used to be treated as a rite of passage when I was younger. It still seems to be more rhetoric than actual action taking according to my kids but raising awareness definitely helps!