Teenage book-lover defended by top authors after he was mocked for his book reviews

Renowned authors and various netizens have sent numerous messages of support to thirteen-year-old Callum Manning from South Shields, England, who was taunted for his book reviews on Instagram. Callum Manning created an Instagram account to post book reviews. However, pupils at his new school started mocking his reviews in a group chat.

While talking to a media house, he talked about how he felt after the incident. He said that he doesn’t intend to cry that often but it was the first time in a while where he cried. His sister also tweeted about this incident.

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After his sister Ellis Landreth's tweet on the bullying, Callum was surprised by the flood of positive messages from bestselling authors around the world. Authors like Malorie Blackman, Matt Haig and Caroline Kepnes all stepped up to support the boy.

After Callum’s sister tweeted about this incident, Callum had hoped that 20-30 of his sister’s friends would like few of his posts or give him some words of encouragement. But within hours, thousands of people came forward to give their positive messages. His Instagram page also saw a surge in its follower count as it went up from 39 followers to around 147,000 followers.

According to a media report, Callum said that the people saw his sister's tweet and thought that it wasn't the right thing because it isn’t. He also added that he started getting loads of comments from everyone showing their support to him. He also said that it feels nice to see that there are still people in this world who are nice.

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In the group chat where he was mocked, he was called as a sad weirdo because of his love for books. Though he was blocked from responding, he could see the texts. Among the books that are reviewed by Callum, there are books by Jane Austen, George Orwell and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, as well as the Harry Potter and Game of Thrones series.

He also had reviewed Caroline Kepnes’ book You. Kepnes sent texted Callum after contacting his sister on Twitter. When he was asked about this by a media house, he said that he is a big fan and he was kind of nervous. According to the media report, his mother was also in tears because of this incident. After seeing the enormous support, she is shocked and she feels that it is brilliant this happened to him.

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