Christina Wyman is an author and a teacher living in Michigan. Her middle grade debut, Jawbreaker, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2023, follows a seventh-grader with a craniofacial anomaly that’s caught the attention of school bullies—including her own sister. Her sophomore novel, Slouch, is about a tall girl navigating friends, family, self-esteem, and boundaries. Here, Wyman addresses why it’s important to represent the reality of such experiences for young readers, however painful.
I’ll never forget the rejection one of my short stories received from a wildly popular magazine for children. You likely grew up reading that magazine. Your teachers had it on hand. It may have even been in your house.
In the story I submitted, my main character was a middle schooler who experienced severe bullying at the hands of her peers and also a key family member. Admittedly, there was a lot wrong with the story that rendered it unpublishable. Writing short stories is not my forte, and I failed to read the room. Magazines for children typically market happiness and hope. This means that any stories they run must contain something hopeful for young readers to hold onto when life feels hard. My story lacked an obvious take-away beyond how much other human beings can really suck sometimes, and it was a rookie mistake.
But that’s not why it was rejected. The feedback was scathing and centered on a singular criticism: the elements of bullying that took place in the story were just not realistic.
What most readers don’t know about me as an author and a person is that I am unyieldingly hard-headed. I’ve also made it my mission to embody a specific piece of advice that I’ve received along the way in my career as a writer: “Take what’s useful and leave the rest.”
I would go on to morph that short story into my debut novel. When Jawbreaker hit shelves—a book about a middle schooler with a craniofacial anomaly who was severely bullied by her peers, including her own sister—it was well received and even met with some critical acclaim, with comparisons to Raina Telgemeier’s Smile and RJ Palaccio’s Wonder. I expected none of this. I am grateful for all of it.
I wrote Jawbreaker because of my own experiences as a deeply insecure kid who was bullied for having a severe overbite. Books that dealt with life-altering bullying didn’t seem to exist when I was growing up in New York City public schools in the ’80s and ’90s—and I’m not sure that they’re plentiful even now. I wanted to offer something to children who navigate similarly difficult circumstances and who may wish to see more of themselves reflected in the pages they read. I’ve since heard from many children, and even some adults, who said they resonate with the trials and tribulations of a girl who is just trying to navigate the hell that can be middle school while remaining emotionally intact.
But even as bullying is now getting far more attention than it did when I was a kid, some readers have commented on how Jawbreaker seems to take things a bit too far. They even suggest that the book’s depiction of the extreme abuse that Max Plink, the main character, endures at the hands of her peers and sister is not realistic.
All authors know that you can’t please everyone. Besides, it would only take a cursory Google search of how bullying impacts schools today to demonstrate just how prevalent and extreme it can be—and sometimes with disastrous outcomes for families and communities.
For some, it merely takes sitting in front of a popular TV show to watch exactly how bullying gets normalized in real time, with real targets. Such was the case with White Lotus star Aimee Lou Wood, when Saturday Night Live mocked her overbite in front of millions of viewers (the show has since apologized to the actor, who expressed disappointment with the sketch).
Before three rounds of braces topped with double-jaw surgery, my smile looked like Wood’s. I still can’t bring myself to watch the viral SNL episode. I think about the children who’ve written to me to say how much Max’s story resonated with them. Did they watch as these professional actors and comedians—all of whom are adults—mocked Wood on a global stage? And if so, how did it make them feel about themselves?
The problem with such so-called jokes is that they cement the idea that targeting people for having perfectly normal (and common) features is the accepted way by which to navigate life, relationships, and each other. Frankly, this is one way that bullies and their victims are made.
The fact that a wildly popular show like Saturday Night Live prioritized laughs over its potential impact on other human beings demonstrates, to my mind, how necessary it is to expose children to literature about bullying, acceptance, and making better choices than the adults around them sometimes make – while also showing them how to feel good in one’s skin.
Remember how I said I was hard-headed? I am also stubbornly optimistic. I believe that children’s books can be the first line of defense against an adult world that insists on facilitating cruelty. What could be more realistic?
