Pink Shirt Day is a hugely important annual event to raise awareness about bullying in schools, workplaces, homes and on the Internet. Each year, supporters proudly wear pink to symbolize a united effort to stand up to bullies and end instances of bullying everywhere. In case you haven’t heard the origins of Pink Shirt Day, here’s how it began with two teenage boys from a high school in Nova Scotia:
“David Shepherd, Travis Price and their teenage friends organized a high-school protest to wear pink in sympathy with a Grade 9 boy who was being bullied [for wearing a pink shirt]…[They] took a stand against bullying when they protested against the harassment of a new Grade 9 student by distributing pink T-shirts to all the boys in their school.
‘As they stood in the foyer handing out the shirts, the bullied boy walked in. His face spoke volumes. ‘It looked like a huge weight was lifted off his shoulders.’
The bullies were never heard from again.”
– Excerpt from article in The Globe and Mail. See more at: http://www.pinkshirtday.ca/about
Orca is proud of our great list of fiction and nonfiction titles that tackle the issues of bullying, peer-pressure, cyber-bullying and school violence. These can be used in the classrooms as conversation starters, as the basis for class projects and as resources for students directly affected by bullying.
Here’s a sampling of our titles that have anti-bullying themes:
We Want You To Know by Deborah Ellis
FaceSpace by Adrian Chamberlain
Rat by Lesley Choyce
Better Than Weird by Anna Kerz
The Beckoners by Carrie Mac
Sticks & Stones by Beth Goobie
Bullying: Deal with It by Elaine Slavens
Audacious by Gabrielle Prendergast
My Side by Norah McClintock
If you’d like to receive a full list of titles, email orca@orcabook.com.
Wear pink today and help put an end to bullying! For more information on Pink Shirt Day and how to get involved, visit www.pinkshirtday.ca