Rating: 
Summary: Children's Cruelty
Review: ... this book was on my "Recommendations" page. I clicked on the title just to see what it was about and felt that I just had to buy the book. I am in a book club, so I picked this book because I thought that it would spark a ton of discussion.While reading this book I felt so many emotions. I was very saddened that Jodee had to go through the emotional, verbal, and physical abuse from her classmates. I was angry at those children and all the parents that told her it would be okay or something that they would grow out of. I felt sorrow that she had a physical deformity that she was teased about. I understood all too well what it felt like to look "different" from the others. I also felt guilty for anyone I might have teased or taunted in school. I was very insecure in school and probably used that as a way to make myself feel better. After reading the book I just wanted to call everyone that I could have possibly said something uncool to and apologize. I had so many emotions while reading this book, but the best was the happiness and relief that I felt for Jodee at the end of the book. I would recommend this book to everyone. People need to know and understand the effects of bullying and teasing. It's not funny...it's just cruel. I wish that I could take every child that has been teased and just wrap them in my arms and tell them how wonderful they are. I'm glad that Jodee made friendships along the way and had wonderful parents to tell her they loved her. This is a must read!
Rating:
Summary: A story everyone can relate to...
Review: This book came highly recommended from several different people. As a Youth Investigator and book lover, I took an interest in this story. Although I am not quite finished with it yet, (but will be later on today) It is a book that you don't want to put down. This is a story that will take you back to your own school days and experiences.
Your heart goes out to Jodee Blanco and what she endured in her childhood. Kids can be very cruel and it is always attributed to "kids being kids." It is a real eye opener, a story that you won't forget.
Rating:
Summary: The Laughing¿s Got to Stop
Review: I read Please Stop Laughing at Me and immediately passed it on to my 17-year-old daughter. Then I bought copies for her school library and councilor. Every student, parent, councilor, social worker, law enforcement employee, lawyer, and medical professional needs to read this book. Surely, each of us can remember a time when we have been teased, or had a cruel joke played on us. With vivid and courageous detail Ms. Blanco recalls the abuse she suffered throughout her childhood at the hands of her peers. I can't even imagine enduring the silent treatment for months simply for defending disabled students, or seeing my shoe floating in the toilet in the girl's bathroom. However, beyond the stories that prove Ms. Blanco to rank among this country's most courageous authors, the hopeful solutions that she poses are worthy of a nation-wide discussion.
There are too many damaged children leaving our schools today.
Buy this book, then let's talk.
Rating:
Summary: Hate to remember, but can never forget
Review: Freshly graduating from high school and having rough times, this book has done nothing but inspire me to think in ways i never have before. It is happy and sad and moving and exciting all at the same time. It has changed the way i think and feel about my past. it is good for kids adults, everyone. it will stay with me forever
Rating:
Summary: This story will stay with me for life
Review: I just finished reading "Please Stop Laughing at me" and I can't think of anything else. I am a Crime Analyst for San Diego City School Police Department and I deal with staticts regarding Battery and Assualts on Children by other Children every day. I don't always hear the details I just receive the numbers. After reading Jodee Blanco's Story I am more than ever willing to get involved with the teachers and parents to stop the bullying that still continues today. Her story was heart renching and made me want to reach out and help her any way I could. If I could speak with Ms. Blanco I would love for her to come visit some of our Jr.Highs and High schools to speak on the subject of Bullying and its effects. This story will truly stay with me for life.
Rating:
Summary: Someone who finally understands
Review: I bought this book for my daughter who is being bullied at school. I thought that it would help her to read a book like this and share the experiences of someone else who went through the same thing. What I didn't expect was that I would also learn so much from Ms. Blanco's traumatic adolescence. When she describes how helpless her parents were to help her and all the things they did wrong, I saw myself and my failing attempts with my own daughter. This is a SERIOUS issue, one that desperately needs more attention, especially from the people who run our schools. I only pray that more people will read her book and that Ms. Blanco will continue to speak out against school bullying. Having dealt with this in my own home, I know the courage it must take to come forth publicly. It won't completely solve the problem, but at least we'd all be making a start.
Rating:
Summary: it was very good!
Review: This is a wonderful book. I am a victim of bullying also. I found this book very interesting. I found that Jodee had a lot of the same feelings I had when my problem was at its peak. The bad reviewers did have some good points. But all in all I think most of them didn't have the experiance and knowledge to say what they had to say. For one, yes it is very believable that that Jodee was picked on because of the dissabled people she helped. I was! And it was inspriring because it taught me that I really can do whatever I want, and Jodee is a very nice person I have emailed her before and got very nice replies from her more than once. Like I said, the people that gave it bad reviews did have some good points, but all in all I think that it was an awsome book.
Rating: 
Summary: Stay Away
Review: This book was awful! I had to read it for a book club and it couldn't be more exagerated. Blanco claims to be bullied and harrased yet never gives reasons as to why she is treated so poorly. This book is not at all realistic for a true story.
The author herself claimed that her book was rejected 30 some times by publishers, you would think that she would realize that perhaps her book sucked, but she didn't get the message. I am writing this to give the message to all the readers considering this book, move on don't waste your time.
Rating:
Summary: really not too sure about this
Review: on the one hand I feel for Jodee. on the other I find it hard to believe that physical assault at this level occured so often and was never reported to the police. this was after all, not simply being teased, shunned and having pranks done to her personal belongings. plain and simple it was violence. I say this as someone who absorbed a lot of grief as a child. myself I realized I brought a lot of it on myself bcaue I acted like a big victim, cried, etc etc. for me it was pretty much kindergarten on. in my part, mean as those kids seemed at the time, I have some perspective and realize from their end they tried to reach out or they would kid around with some innocuous statement and I would freak out and over time it developed into my being on the outskirts. unfortuantely I ate up a lot of stories just like Jodees when I was a kid that completely absolved me from taking a good long look at myself to see just why in every setting I went into it went down hill very fast. on the one hand, I see a lot of smug self righteousness in Jodee (and her parents) in most of her new environments she made a big deal out of a minor incident. the prank on the teacher for instance, I think the guy took it all wrong...my kids go to a private school adn the jr high ALWAYS pranks one of the teachers..rubber rats on the desk, etc...its in fun. I am not sure I saw the hostility in the shampoo prank that Jodee did and that seemed to be her undoing. in another school she stands up and reads an essay on Janis Joplin which is basically groveling at the feet of the "popular kids" on the first day. from then on she is a marked woman. the business with the pig dissection. this was not a quiet pulling aside of the teacher to ask not to do this..it was a big histrionic scene in front of the school. painful as it might be Jodee would do well to look at the role she played in her own victimization beyond as she sees it "doing the right thing". I know plenty of do gooder "popular kids" and none of them are shunned so I really have to wonder if it was her attitude about doing good as opposed to the fact she did good. just wondering. on the other hand, if what she reports actually happened no matter how obnoxious she may have been it is hard to justify abusing another human being in that manner. if she truly did NOT play into it then these kids have a serious problem. I have read an interview on another web site where she mentions these dynamics as peculiar to upper and middle class suburbia. maybe the kids are simply reflecting thier parents interests in "image" that seem to be rampant in some of these environments. if that is true, I have to say, in this day and age if it was my kid I would not subject them to this type of environment. I realize that years ago this was just not on parents radar. on the same interview Jodee bashes homeschooling as a "cop out". really now. the people I know who homeschool do in fact socialize their children...they are just not turning them loose into a socially Darwinian survival of the fittest situation. there is nothing wrong with that. I would much rather have a child homeschooled than watch my child suffer as Jodee did (again assuming her recollections are truly accurate and not simply a beefed up way to get back at people who rejected her). I would add, that seeing Jodees comments on her site and elsewhere she seems intent on bragging on how many celebrities she smoozes with (note to Jodee: celebrities are not the creme de la creme of emotionally healthy people) and how important her job is. if this is an extension of how she was in high school even if it was beyond the radar of her awareness how she came off to people I have to say I am not surprised if people avoided her.
Rating:
Summary: I don't believe you, Jodee!!
Review: Right off the bat, I'll say that bullies are bad, but for god's sake, who calls their mother during a makeout party? It seems the author tattled on people when not much was going on, and when she was being harassed, she didn't. I didn't believe most of her descriptions of the more outrageous bullying, because I went to public school too and here's the thing-- kids move on. There's always a new person to pick on. Switching schools over and over in the vain hope that someone will eventually not want to crazy glue her locker shut or flush her stuff down the toilet obviously doesn't work and if she was as brilliant as she seemed to think, she might have gotten that after the 2nd school.
No one could possibly be as perfect and wonderful and smart as Jodee. Sorry, folks, this book is awful.
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