• Age: 9 to 12
• Grade: 4 to 7
• Reading age: 9 to 12

Daniel Abel is surprised when, instead of being punished for "pantsing" another eighth-grader, he is invited to become an ambassador of Mountview High at the school's upcoming open house.

What Daniel doesn't realize is that he is part of a social experiment on bullying being conducted by the local university. He is a little nervous to learn he will be working with Jeff Kover, a tenth-grader with a reputation for being the biggest bully in the school. Daniel has never thought of himself as a bully. He just likes kidding around. But hanging out with Jeff will change Daniel's perspective on bullying and force him to examine his own behavior.

This short novel is a high-interest, low-reading level book for middle-grade readers who are building reading skills, want a quick read or say they don’t like to read!

MONIQUE POLAK écrit régulièrement pour le Montreal Gazette et a été publiée dans de nombreux autres quotidiens de renom tels que le Globe and Mail, le National Post et Newsday. Dans la collection SideStreets, elle a écrit All In et On the Game, ainsi que Flip Turn pour la collection Sports Stories. D’ailleurs, ces deux derniers ouvrages ont figuré sur la liste des meilleurs livres pour enfants du Centre du livre jeunesse canadien. Monique enseigne l’écriture ainsi que la littérature anglaise. Elle vit à Montréal, au Québec, avec son mari et sa fille.

MONIQUE POLAK is the author of 26 novels for young readers, as well as two non-fiction titles and a board book. Her books Hate Mail, Room for One More, and the historical novel What World is Left, which was inspired by her mother’s experience during the Holocaust, were all winners of the Quebec Writers’ Federation Prize for Children’s and YA Literature.

Her books have also been nominated for the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People and the Arthur Ellis Award, and several have been selected as Best Books for Children and Teens by the Canadian Children’s Book Centre.

She is also a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in The Globe and Mail, Macleans, and Postmedia newspapers across the country, and is a columnist on ICI Radio-Canada’s Plus on est de fous, plus on lit Monique lives in Montreal, Quebec, where she teaches English and Humanities at Marianopolis College.

Monique Polak's profile page

• Commended, Resource Links, The Year's Best Books

"Polak have developed very real and modern characters...Hopefully Bullies Rule will become a fixture in every school library and classroom. Highly Recommended."

CM: Canadian Review of Materials

"Polak writes a true to life story that could be happening in any school...[she] treats the subject with dignity and grace...The text is well written for readers with a simpler reading level, but the novel would also appeal to readers with more reading abilities, mostly because the topic of the story is so relevant to schools today...A perfect novel containing a realistic story/plot which teen can relate to, suitable for public libraries and especially school libraries and classrooms."

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