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Top authors come out in support of teenage book reviewer after he is bullied by peers

WION Web Team
New DelhiUpdated: Mar 02, 2020, 02:28 PM IST
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Photograph:(Instagram)

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Ever since his sister tweeted about the incident, authors like Malorie Blackman, Matt Haig and Caroline Kepnes have sent words of encouragement to the 13-year-old boy. 

When 13-year-old Callum Manning started an Instagram page to review books, all he wanted were words of encouragement and some likes. But Callum was bullied by his peers instead at his new school who began to mock the reviews in a group chat he had joined. 

Callum's sister Ellis Landreth took to Twitter to report the incident and wrote, "Can’t believe how awful kids are. My little brothers [sic] made an Instagram reviewing and talking about books and kids in his new school have seen it and have created a group chat calling him a creep slagging him off about it and added him to it so he could see."

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Ellis said all her brother hoped was to get “20 or 30 of my friends like a few of his posts or follow him or give him some words of encouragement”.

The tweet has since then gone viral, and Callum has got words of encouragement from authros like Malorie Blackman, Matt Haig and Caroline Kepnes.

What more, the young teenager's Instagram followers have increased from 39 to 147,000! 

Hours after Ellis tweeted, people started drooping positive, encouraging message to Callum. “People saw it and people just thought ‘it’s not right’ because it isn’t,” Callum told a website. “Then I started getting loads of comments from everyone showing their support. I just think it’s really nice that there are still people in the world who are nice.”

His peers on the group chat had described him as 'a sad weirdo' because of his love for books. 

Callum has reviewed works of Jane Austen, George Orwell and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, as well as the Harry Potter and Game of Thrones series on his page. 

Kepnes, whose book 'You' was reviewed by the young boy, sent a text to Callum after contacting Landreth on Twitter. “Obviously I’m a really big fan so I was kind of nervous but that was really cool,” said Callum.