Carolyn Mackler is the author of several novels for young readers including the Printz Honor-winning The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things. In her new middle grade novel, Right Back at You, two seventh graders, one living in New York City in 2023, and one living in western Pennsylvania in 1987, connect through letters that somehow travel across time and space. After they get over their initial mystification (1987 Talia can’t imagine how 2023 Mason has his own computer; Mason’s sure he’s being tricked), the two bond over being bullied and a shared love of the Yankees. PW spoke with Mackler about her own experience with bullying, the difference between the present day and when she was in middle school, and her hopes that the book can bring different kinds of kids together.
Talia and Mason live 36 years apart, but one thing they have in common is that they’re both being bullied. What drew you to this topic?
I was in middle school in 1987. I was shy, and out of the blue in seventh grade, a bunch of boys started bullying me for being Jewish. My dad was Jewish; I grew up in a secular household; and I never thought it was anything that people would make fun of. But I grew up in a very homogenous small town, and suddenly these boys were wearing swastikas on their shirts and slipping notes with swastikas in my locker. The bullying was just devastating to my self-esteem. I asked myself, why does everyone hate me? What did I do wrong? I felt ashamed; I felt embarrassed. I felt like there was something very wrong with me.
The adults at school didn’t do anything about it. I felt very alone. But it passed. I went to high school, I made friends, and I bounced back. But it had a lasting impact on my self-esteem. It’s probably one of the reasons I write for children: I have a great sympathy for that age group.
Fast forward to the present, and I’m the mom of two boys. When they were in middle school, I noticed that bullying was still rampant. There are more anti-bullying measures in places, and the adults are more conscious; they do a lot more to try to shut it down, but kids still do it. And the kids being bullied still feel horrible about themselves. So when I was thinking about Right Back at You, I loved the fact that two kids from different generations connect about the universality of the middle school experience and the feeling that being bullied evokes. One thing that helps is a friend. There has to be one friend or person or sympathetic ear, even if it’s so unlikely like [in my book], who says I’m here for you. A friend makes it a lot easier.
What do you think lets Talia’s bullies (and, for that matter, yours) be so casually antisemitic?
Why do people make fun of anyone whose identity is different from theirs? What’s funny about that? I think that people casually make fun of people whose identities or body types or physical abilities are different from all the other people around them. It’s fun to them to pick on the one who’s different. When people are mean, they often will say, “Oh, I’m just joking.” Or adults in charge say “boys will be boys,” allowing the meanness to fester under the guise of joking. Joking is when we’re all laughing; joking is not when we’re laughing at someone else’s expense. I think these casually antisemitic boys are probably going home and hearing the adults they live with saying nasty things about other groups of people. Kids learn to hate people based on their identity. They aren’t bad kids, but no one has told them that you don’t build up your self-esteem by crushing someone else’s.
Talia’s bullies don’t get in trouble, and Mason says they absolutely would now. Do you think we’re in a better place in dealing with bigotry?
I think we’ve come a long way. I think most parents would like their kids to not be bigots, to practice kindness, to be accepting. I think schools are very aware of the harmful effects of bigotry and have safety measures in place to make sure that students are not doing things that harm people in other groups. As a society, we are trying harder to embrace diversity, but unfortunately, bigotry is still happening. We have a long way to go as far as teaching our young people to be kind to people of all backgrounds.
I talked to a lot of educators, and they all felt that there was more awareness now than in the ’80s. The principals and superintendents I talked to were teenagers in the ’80s, and they were aware of how bullying felt so unchecked. Teachers turned a blind eye to a lot of cruelty. The educators I talked to were excited about the book, because they have a lot of students who are feeling alienated and alone, and this can be part of the conversation about what we can do better.
What made you want to write this book now?
I’ve wanted to write this book since I was in my 20s. I always had the idea of telling the girl’s story in 1987, and it never felt quite right. I couldn’t find the way into the voice until I thought of Mason, a contemporary boy, and I figured out how to bridge the relationship between them. I saw with my kids that bullying was still happening, and I’ve noticed over the last several years that there’s been an uptick in meanness in our country, not just among children, but among adults. I feel like society as a whole has gotten meaner and it’s detrimental both to individuals and how we function as a society. We need to thrive and work together and move forward collectively, to connect despite our differences. Talia and Mason have so many differences, and yet they find a commonality. And that’s my hope.
In the Right Back at You project with Scholastic, I’m working with two very different schools (one urban, one rural) that will be reading the book in March. I’ll have a joint author visit with them, and then the kids will correspond with each other. The goal is to foster connections despite geographic and social differences, to build more empathy and understanding despite differences.
Right Back at You by Carolyn Mackler. Scholastic Press, $17.99 Mar. 4 ISBN 978-1-338-73421-8
