The story is about three seventh-graders Russell, Elliot, and Catalina attending Parkland, nicknamed Darkland by the student who attend there. Russell who seem to always be tongue tied. Elliot is obsessed with dinosaurs and Catalina is half-Filipina. The three are tired of being bullied. A rumor is going round the school about Catalina. They find out how to send school wide messages to the student body. The three post a letter to squelch rumors the popular girls are spreading. The post is known as "The Darkland Revealer." Many of the student can relate to being bullied or bulling. Other students start to send in their stories. It rises the awareness of bulling.

Recommended Ages: Gr. 5-8

Plot Summary: Russell somehow lost all of his friends in the transition from elementary school to middle school. he survived seventh grade, but as an eighth grader, he has no one but his mom. On the way home from school he manages to say the wrong thing to the worst bully in the school. Now scared of his new enemy, who threatens to be watching him and in a moment has control of Russell's emotions and actions, Russell is even more lost. Desperate, he contacts the school's biggest victim, Elliot to find out how to get Richie to stop. Elliot doesn't have any answers, but their discussion leads to an idea. They will change their behaviors and see if that gets different results from the bullies. In the library after school, they see the message the mean girls dropped in Catalina's lap. She joins their group and takes Russell's advice to write down her story. Together, the three new friends send the email to the entire school through their KidNet and with the help of a teacher. The students react: kids are nicer to Catalina and some even reply with their own stories of bullying. The teachers got the email too, but aren't sure what to do about it. Russell, Elliot, and Catalina decide to share the new stories but this time send them to the students only. They keep posting the replies, until one post gets them in trouble and threatens to shut down KidNet. Will they escape the wrath of the bullies? Will KidNet survive? Will the school ever be bully-free?

Setting: Parkland Middle School, some suburb

Characters:
Russell - 8th grader, dad died when he was young, says the wrong thing and weirds people out
Richie Tucker - worst bully, dad is mean to him
Elliot Gekewicz - perpetual victim of bullying, loves dinosaurs, decided to stand up to his three bullies and swing a sock of marbles but the Jock Rots respond by holding him upside down over a bridge then dropping him, Big Chris is the only one who seemed remorseful for his actions
Catalina Aarons - from Manila in the Philippines, tall and pretty
Brittany DeMere - leader of the mean girls
Jock Rots: Burke Brown, Jon Blanchette, Big Chris

Recurring Themes: bullying, internet, family, friendship, victim, standing up for yourself, experiment, speaking up

Controversial Issues:
pg 43 "What the hell do you mean?"
pg 44 "you don't figure out crap, all right?"
pg 44 "how would you feel if somebody wanted to make your life hell and you didn't know why?"
pg 58 "you're all ganging-up- suckhead coward asses"
pg 65 'making our life hell"
pg 96 "after all the crap you've done to him?"
pg 124 "You're an ass!"
pg 141 "What the hell is that?...What the hell is it for?"
pg 142 "what the hell kind of question is that?...Like you're the dad from hell or something...You can kiss my ass."
pg 178 "I'm gonna push you right in that damn Dumpster....You're just a damn bully"

Personal Thoughts: This is definitely the most cliche book I've read about bullying. Every character fit into a nice neat package. Catalina made the leader of the mean girls jealous. Richie is beaten by his dad and takes it out on others. The writing, especially the dialogue, is not authentic.

Genre: realistic fiction, drama

Pacing: medium-slow
Characters: not too many, mostly well developed but very cliche
Frame: the KidNet concept is a little confusing from a teacher's perspective but it didn't make too much of a difference as long as you believe everything in the story is possible (which it is, I just don't know of a school that uses it)
Storyline:

Activity: ( )

Three kids who get picked on a lot team up and fight back against bullies, and discover that the pen is truly mightier than the sword. It verges on preachy, and the initial reaction to the first letter (which was a lengthy "I'm a person too!"; reaction was everyone being nicer to her and nobody making fun of it) was pretty unrealistic.

This is a Book About Bullying, and not a story in its own right. It's sure to appear on countless summer reading lists, but the truth is that it's just not that good a book--it's all caught up in its Message, at the expense of character development and decent writing. Fine to use in schools with class discussion, but not something middle-schoolers would actively seek out to read. ( )

Russell finds himself on the receiving end of bullying and begins to notice how often it happens to others in school. Finding friends in Elliott and Cataline, the trio conduct a science experiment on the bullying at school. Although things go awry, these three ultimately prevail in helping people see their true colors. The teachers at school don’t quite get it, parents are in the periphery and the bullies are worse than ever and yet Russell and company find a way to beat them in the end. Those who understand what it is like to feel alone surrounded by people and those who have witnessed/experienced bullying first-hand will all find something resonant in this story. Use it in your classrooms as an authentic text component or as a base for opening up the bully discussion in your school. ( )

The Revealers by Doug Wilhelm. Library section: Youth (grades 6-8), Fiction. What do you do when you are a middle schooler who gets bullied constantly? Three bullying victims join forces to discover and show the extent of bullying in their school. The school has a computer network where the entire school family – both kids and adults – can communicate. Kids can e-mail teachers about homework questions. Teachers can remind students about a test coming up.
These three youths send their stories to the entire student body on the school network, about being bullied and how it makes them feel. Soon other kids come forward, writing to these three kids, about their own, similar experiences being bullied. Even the bullies themselves write confessions, telling how bullying others makes them feel. Often they feel shame, guilt and fear of their own lack of self-control.
The three kids create a web newspaper called The Revealer, which reveals the extent of bullying in their school. As you can imagine, the principal, who has previously ignored the plight of the victims and failed to find and punish the school’s bullies, is shocked at the revelations and shuts down the site. But The Revealers find a way to spotlight the bullying incidents which raises awareness of students, staff and school board members, alleviates the worst bullying, as well as saving the face of the principal.
This book gives kids who are bullied a feeling that they are not alone, and that things can be done to raise awareness and alleviate bullying. Indeed, the ELCA synod assembly will discuss bullying and harassment this summer, and I hope the synod can help to raise awareness of this problem. If you were bullied as a child or teen, or watched your children get bullied, called names or suffered exclusion, or if you struggled with a child who was a bully, then you know how important this issue is, and the kind of sharp misery it creates.
In a short comment after the story ends, the author says that in the past four years since the book was written, it has been used in school classes to study the issue, and that the book was instrumental in helping an anti-bullying law get passed in Vermont, one of the first such measures in states across the country. This book has given principals, school boards, and teachers the support they need to take new, creative action to raise awareness of bullying and alleviate it in their schools. Hallelujah! ( )