Laurie O’Neil, family outreach social worker at James M. Quinn Elementary School, at the school’s Mix It Up Day last year.

A Christian group’s protests have spurred some schools to pull their involvement from next week’s Mix it Up at Lunch Day—an 11-year-old program meant to reduce prejudice among students that’s sponsored by the Teaching Tolerance project, part of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

But the American Family Association (AFA) doesn’t see the program that way. Instead, the Christian association has launched a campaign encouraging families to keep their children home on October 30, describing the event as a means to “establish the acceptance of homosexuality into public schools…” The AFA did not return calls requesting comment.

Schools that have participated in Mix It Up at Lunch Day for a decade have reported that the event is a great way for all students to break down social barriers—and even make new friends.

Deerfield (MA) Elementary School, which is holding their event on Friday October 26, has sixth graders lead table discussions over three different lunch periods.

“The students will say, ‘I already know everyone at this table,’ yet that’s not where they normally sit,” says Jeanine Heil, Deerfield’s principal. “This has allowed them to get to know more people at the school.”

The Teaching Tolerance project encourages schools to run Mix It Up at Lunch  on October 30— allowing for students to mingle and meet kids they may not normally share their sandwich with on a regular school day. There are materials online, plus links to model schools, like Deerfield, including other ideas on how to mark the event.

About 2,755 schools are registered to participate this October, more than each of the last two years. However, Maureen Costello, Teaching Tolerance’s director, says that about 5,000 or more usually hold an event, but don’t officially sign up online. Because of the AFA’s protests this year, 250 schools asked to be unregistered—but then another 400 added their names to the official list, Costello said.

“Half [that unregistered] indicated they were doing so under duress and had every intention of doing the program on another day or under another name,” she says.

Eileen Hunter-Sweeney says her school hasn’t heard a peep about concerns about next week’s Mix It Up at Lunch Day at Hackberry Hill Elementary in Arvada, CO. Instead, the kids are excited about the chance to sit with new students, as they have every year since Teaching Tolerance launched the event.

“It’s an easy way to meet someone they want to sit with,” says Hunter-Sweeney, the school’s social worker. “They don’t have to have the nerve to walk across the cafeteria and meet someone new. They’re expected to.”

Students at the Mix It Up event last year.

They’re not necessarily expected to wear big purple hats at James M. Quinn Elementary School in Dartmouth, MA. But that’s what Laurie O’Neil, the school’s family outreach social worker will don at next Tuesday’s lunch, where teachers, students and staff are encouraged to mix up their clothing as well. “The kids love it,” says O’Neil.

At Lynn (MA) English High School, students are invited to two Mix It Up dinners each year—one in the spring and one in October, held earlier this week, where about 150 students paid $3 each, enjoyed a catered dinner of pasta and salad, played Pictionary, and were assigned tables by picking a random number.

“The goal is to work with kids within the school to improve school climate and make everyone feel welcome and accepted,” says Ginny Keenan, peer mediation and mentoring coordinator and Friends of Rachel Club advisor, which sponsors the event.

And that, ultimately, is the goal organizers hope to reach: students seeing each other for the individuals they are—and accepting them into the school community.

“We hope the schools use it as an approach to build a positive climate for students and respect for each other,” says Costello. “We don’t want students to relate to stereotypes but to each other.”

Bullied when she was a girl, author and illustrator Frieda Wishinsky got payback by using her childhood persecutor as source material for her books. So Long Stinky Queen (Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 2000) is about two elementary school students who turn the tables on a bossy classmate, while You’re Mean, Lily Jean! (Albert Whitman, 2011), shows how a little girl finds a funny, effective way to stand up to her older sister’s overbearing new friend.

Wishinsky, the author and illustrator of over 60 picture books, says that her experience of being bullied taught her the importance of asserting herself. One of several authors participating in “Bullying in Books for Youth,” a New York Public Library Children’s Literary Salon on October 20, she advises using humor to outsmart bullies, much as her characters have done.

Authors Paul Griffin, Madeline George, and others on the panel, which coincides with National Bullying Prevention Month, discussed their personal encounters with cruel classmates, the healing power of books, and their advice to young people today—the bulliers along with the bullied.

Like Wishinsky, author Susane Colasanti drew from her own experiences when writing her semi-autobiographical novel Keep Holding On (Viking, 2012) about an abused girl who is teased and taunted by cruel classmates. “My purpose with every book is to reach out to teens and help them feel less alone,” she said.

Moderator Betsy Bird, NYPL youth material specialist and School Library Journal blogger, observed that current books often give the topic nuanced treatment by blurring the lines between bully and victim or by depicting perpetrators sympathetically. For instance, Dav Pilkey’s Captain Underpants and the Terrifying Return of Tippy Tinkletrousers (Scholastic, 2012), about two boys who take revenge on their tormenter with a series of pranks that soon become far worse than the original bullying.

Others concurred that the persecutor/victim divide is not always so clear. Paul Griffin, who has worked with incarcerated and at-risk teens since 1989, observed that bullies themselves are often victims of abuse. His own young adult novel, Stay with Me (Dial, 2011), includes a scene where a persecuted boy lashes back at his attacker, becoming a victimizer himself.

Similarly, author Colasanti imbued the antagonist of Keep Holding On (Viking, 2012) with a complex backstory and motivation for her malicious actions. Like Griffin, she feels that books showing bullies as well-developed, realistic characters, rather than one-dimensional villains, are much more powerful.

The authors also touched on how books can lead to positive changes in the lives of their readers. Griffin described an experience with a troubled teen during a school visit. One student responded enthusiastically when Griffin read a passage depicting a graphic act of brutality from one of his novels. Griffin learned that the teen was being severely bullied and was on the brink of violently retaliating. According to Griffin, “That kid that day needed to hear that scene” in order to voice his problems—bibliotherapy in action—and the author was able to ensure he received the support he needed.

George’s novel, Looks (Viking, 2008), about the unlikely bond between two outsiders—a silent overweight girl and a sharp-tongued anorexic poet—may provide therapeutic value of a different sort, she suggested. The book’s ambiguous ending offers only a “very slender thread of hope” that life will improve for her protagonists, she said. Panelists agreed that starkly realistic, honest works like this with uncertain resolution often resonate most with teens, as they did with George when she was a young adult.

Participants concurred that the best way for young people to cope with bullying is by having the courage to reach out to others. Griffin advocated getting young people together to discuss their problems, and Wishinsky agreed: “Don’t be that isolated kid, get a friend. If you can give anyone advice, it’s get a friend…so you’re not alone.”