Bullyville
* spoilers appear in the review
“What’s more important even than college,’ Dr. Bratton continued, ‘are the lifelong friendships that Baileywell students form, relationships that are not only sustaining in every way, but are incredibly helpful as our graduates find their path through a world that gets scarier and more threatening every day”
“And what’s most important…is the kind of young men we are graduating. Men who feel sympathy for the underdog. The little guy. Who can see things from the little guy’s point of view. Our hope is that the Baileywell experience will produce the sort of compassionate, feeling, deeply, human men who will lead us into a brighter and more caring future.”
Dr. Bratton (Dr. Bratwurst to Bulleywell insiders) has high hopes for his students. Unfortunately, his sentiments seem to pertain to some alternate universe as they don’t reflect the reality of school life for Baileywell’s students. Just ask Bart Rangely.
Bart’s eighth-grade year at Hillbrook Middle School in northern New Jersey begins just like his previous school years–school’s the place to go to hang out with friends and to fly miles under the radar, just like he likes it. However, flying under the radar becomes impossible after Bart stays home from school sick on 9/11/2001.
On that day, Bart’s father (who has not been home for six months anyway since he left them to live with another woman) goes to work on the ninety-fifth floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. His mother, who works in the North Tower also, remains home to take care of Bart.
When they receive news of his father’s death, Bart’s whole world turns upside down. Not only does he have to deal with the instant fame created by his “saving” his mother’s life; he’s also coping with the death of a father who deserted them before his death. He’s also received a full scholarship to Baileywell. His mother believe this scholarship to be the good coming out of the bad, but Bart’s not so sure.
Bart’s matriculation into Baileywell Prep (better known as Bulleywell but also known as Bullyville or Bullyreallywell) signifies his transition from “Miracle Boy” of 9/11 to “bully-ee.” Bart is assigned Tyro Bergen as his Big Brother, Big Brother like Big Brother in 1984 that is. Tyro’s watching Bart and thinking about Bart for the sole purpose of thinking up new methods of psychological torture to inflict upon him.
Despite Bart’s misery at Bulleywell, he endures because his mother seems so happy that he has such an “opportunity.” She clings to his Baileywell education as if it proves that 09/11 didn’t completely shatter her, her son, and their view of the world and humanity itself. However, when Tyro’s nastiness reaches a new level, Bart snaps and retaliates.
Repercussions ensue for the both Bart and Tyro, and they end up in community service. From there, they both find that outward appearances can be deceiving, that change can be very difficult indeed, and that one’s past impacts one’s future. Bart’s year at Bullyville changes him indelibly, and, as Dr. Bratton envisioned from the get-go, the Baileywell experience helps turn him into “the sort of compassionate, feeling, deeply, human men who will lead us into a brighter and more caring future.”
While the ending felt too neat and jarringly retrospective to me (it wraps up with Bart as a father looking back on his Bulleywell days), on the whole Bullyville creates an emotionally complicated and seemingly realistic picture of an underdog’s life. Bullyville covers what it’s like to be bullied and suggests possible responses of the bully-ee, but also it depicts a young boy’s coming to terms with loss, change, friendship, and his place in this world.
For other YA read-alikes about bullies and bullying that have equally disturbing pictures of bullies, try Brock Cole’s The Goats or Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War. And for even more ideas on this topic at all age levels view the recently posted booklist compiled by Tessa Michaelson and posted at website for the Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison: Thick-skinned, Thin-skinned, The Skin I’m In: Books about Bullying, Teasing, Relational Aggression and School Violence. Does anyone else have any suggestions on this topic or thoughts on Prose’s novel?
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