Can a book on bullying be humorous? A.S. King thought so and she has written a brilliant book

Everybody Sees the Ants by A.S. King
Little, Brown and Company
ISBN: 978-0-316-12928-2
$17.99

Lucky Linderman knows what it’s like to be bullied. He knows what it’s like to live in fear while adults, caught up in their own fears and failures and problems fall short when he asks for help. Lucky does everything schools and parents tell kids might work to stop bullying. He tells his teachers who avoid confronting this bully and his attorney father. He tells his parents; his father, who behaves like a turtle with his own problems, tells Lucky to ignore the bully. But how do you ignore someone who mocks you, shoves you around and beats on you with the help of his buddies?
Lucky has been bullied since he was seven when Nadar McMillan peed on his feet and now that Lucky is fourteen, the bullying has escalated until half of Lucky’s face is crushed into a concrete wall and scabbed over from the confrontation. Lucky’s mother responds by buying two tickets for herself and Lucky to visit a distant brother. The two escape town, Lucky’s bully, and the silent father Lucky has come to disdain. Lucky escapes even further into dreams of saving his MIA/POW grandfather. In these dreams, he learns that his grandfather has learned to survive when he won’t raise a hand against his captors because they also feed him and keep him alive.
But reality finally pulls Lucky from his dreams. During his weeks away and living with a wacky aunt and unfaithful uncle, Lucky comes to recognize his mother’s inner strength, and he meets Ginny, a beautiful girl whose own parents are her worst bullies. He discovers, through the imperfect reality of the world and the people he loves, that he can stand up to a bully without ever hitting him and that, the words “”fag”, “Mama’s boy” and “dick” only have as much power to hurt as you allow. He learns that, what his parents have said is true – with time and maturity, the bullies remain losers and the bullied grow up with new strengths. A.S. King’s storytelling is brilliantly funny and dark. She faces every bullied kid’s hard truths while also offering hope and growth.