Burying the Moon

Written by Andrée Poulin

Illustrated by Sonali Zohra

Groundwood Books

978-1-77306-604-2

112 pp.

Ages 9-12

October 2021

Every night

in the field 

     of Shame

Latika has only

     one thought

     one wish:

     to bury the moon. (pg. 14)

That's because Latika and the girls and women of her Indian village always head to the field on the outskirts to crouch and do their business in the night as there are no toilet facilities available to them. They are silent, they are ashamed and they are fearful. And Latika resents that moon shining down on them and revealing them in the shame of their bodily functions.

From Burying the Moon by Andrée Poulin, illus. by Sonali Zohra

At home, Latika's grandmother is bedridden, her Aunt Nita sobs for the loss of her young son, and her older sister Ranjini, once the brightest student at school, rages at everything now that she has turned twelve and been forced, as a young woman, to stop attending school.

When a very-important-government-official, Mister Samir, comes to Padaram to see how the government could help the village, Latika is desperate to ask about "you know what" but she is dissuaded by her mother.

It's so hard

to stay silent

when you have

important things

          to say.

Important things

  that everyone

      stays silent

          about. (pg. 41)

When Mister Samir brings an engineer to the village to install a well, Latika tries to speak with Mister Samir, whose smiling eyes encourage her. But when the sarpanch–village leader–and Mister Samir have a disagreement, Latika is terrified to approach him. Still Latika finds a way to engineer something that will work before she is able to share their need for sanitation with Mister Samir and change minds, including her own about burying that moon.

From Burying the Moon by Andrée Poulin, illus. by Sonali Zohra

Today, November 19, is World Toilet Day and Burying the Moon makes a significant contribution in recognizing the great number of people globally who do not have access to toilets and sanitation. Worse yet is the gender inequality and discrimination that accompanies this deficiency. With girls prohibited from going to school once they turn twelve in anticipation of them getting their menstrual periods, the stigma of expelling their bodies' waste is compounded. But Andrée Poulin does more than just indicate how inconvenient the lack of toilets are for women. She recognizes that the Shame, always capitalized in Burying the Moon, is a greater burden for them. It robs them of their pride, their voices and their education. 

 

Telling Latika's story in free verse is inspiring. The text is heavy with meaning and emotion but short on filler. The depth of Latika's loathing for the moon, her jealousy at what boys are allowed to do, and her anger at the harm their village's unsanitary conditions have done is so palpable that readers will feel all that. Even though most who read this book will know nothing of these conditions, whether sanitation or gender discrimination, they will sympathize and hopefully learn more. (Andrée Poulin who previously worked in international development assistance offers further reading to help inform readers.)

 

With India's Sonali Zohra's digitally-rendered illustrations, rich in purples, roses and blues with lines of vitality, providing the context for Andrée Poulin's story, Burying the Moon is both a story to inform about a global issue and one of empowerment as Latika steps up to find a solution while discovering her own voice.

Tough Like Mum

Written by Lana Button

Illustrated by Carmen Mok

Tundra Books

978-0-7352-6598-1

32 pp.

Ages 3-7

April 2021

Though her mum might not always feel very tough or that she is able to manage, Kim tries to emulate her, never admitting she needs help or acknowledging anything she might perceive as weakness. But can anyone really be tough all the time?

From Tough Like Mum by Lana Button, illus. by Carmen Mok

From Carmen Mok's gouache and coloured pencil illustrations, it is evident that Kim and her mother are financially strapped. They share a bed, their socks are unmatched, their clothes and furniture are patched, and the food in the house is minimal. It's no wonder that Kim awakens soothing herself with her thumb in her mouth. But Kim is a tough cookie, tough like her mum, and she gets herself ready for school, making her own breakfast and lunch, and even planning for dinner–"Tomato, you are my favorite soup. Sit right here and wait for me"–because her mom hasn't gotten out of bed this morning. But Kim has a form for school that is due that day, a form for a field trip that costs $6.00. How is she going to get Mum to sign it when she's still sleeping, attempting to shut out the world–"Don't start on me, Kim!"–and get the money she knows they don't have?

On that cold winter day, Kim gets herself off to school, though some parents question her about being without a hat. Kim just tells them she doesn't need it, and the parents call her tough like her mom Jen. Kim won't let anyone see that she's cold. Because she's learned not to ask for help. And at lunchtime when David makes fun of her sandwich, she stays tough, never letting them see how sad and mad she is on the inside. But there's still the problem of the school trip. 

She has tried to find a solution, submitting a few coins she'd found in her mom's pocket, hoping the teacher wouldn't notice. But Mrs. Jones does notice and suggests her mother check a certain box on the form. It may read "I can't pay" but Kim knows it really means "I need help" and that's a box her mum has never checked.

From Tough Like Mum by Lana Button, illus. by Carmen Mok

Accepting help is never easy, and it seems to be especially so for Jen and Kim.  But when Kim gets home from school, she finds a way to take care of her mother, sadly still in the clothes she slept in, with compassion, humour and courage. Asking and accepting help might not be easy but it can be worth it.

From Tough Like Mum by Lana Button, illus. by Carmen Mok

Though Lana Button's picture books, including Raj's Rule (For the Bathroom at School), What If Bunny's NOT a Bully, and Willow Finds a Way, are aimed at young children, they focus on some tough issues. There are worries that young children have that cloud their lives and can cause anxiety. Whether it's bullying or self-confidence, using the bathroom or an absent teacher, Lana Button understands that these are very big issues for children. But in Tough Like Mum, Lana Button demonstrates that the shame of poverty transcends age and manifests differently for young children and for their parents who try to provide their best. Kim wants to be tough about what money they don't have, or the food she eats, or the clothes she wears. She strives to be tough like her mum. But sometimes being tough means accepting that help is needed. Together Kim and her mum realize this.

Lana Button's honest story of a single mum and child living in poverty and struggling with the perceived disgrace of their circumstances is stark. There are moments of lightness, like when Kim is praised for her reading and then brings that joy to her mum with it, or when they snuggle together in bed. But it's a hard life for both and the illustrations by Carmen Mok reflect that sparseness of their lives. From a sparsely-furnished home, to the mismatched clothing and furniture, patched or damaged, theirs is an unadorned life, and the art depicts that. 

From Tough Like Mum by Lana Button, illus. by Carmen Mok

But Lana Button's message of having the courage to accept help is paramount. Asking for help is not weak, though many, including Kim, may feel that it is so, exposing their vulnerabilities. Perhaps Kim's mum has never checked that box before, managing to somehow scrape together needed funds or accepting that Kim would have to do without. But by acknowledging that they might need some help, they've taken a big step forward. That just proves how tough Kim and her mum truly are.

 

• • • • • • •

Check back tomorrow for my interview with author Lana Button about Tough Like Mum and her approach to writing this story.

Trail of Crumbs

Written by Lisa J. Lawrence

Orca Book Publishers

978-1-4598-2121-7

247 pp.

Ages 13+

2019

We all hope a trail of crumbs will lead us to safety and maybe even home, but both are sadly elusive for seventeen-year-old Greta in this young adult novel of trauma and abandonment.
 
After their mom died from breast cancer when Greta and her twin brother Ash were just eight, their dad Roger fell apart. He lost his truck driving job because of a DUI, had to sell the house and sent the kids to live with a relative. Though he remarried and got the kids back, the turmoil of their lives becomes one of emotional abuse with their stepmom Patty always yelling, complaining and blaming Greta and Ash for everything. After another altercation, Patty convinces Roger to abandon the kids and they sneak off in the night.

Seven years he'd made excuses for Patty's anger, tried to make them share the blame in her tornado of drama. They'd been kids–imperfect, noisy, messy. He'd played middle man between a wolf and two sheep, trying to justify why the wolf always tore at them. Trying to please that rabid wolf. (pg. 89-90)

Left alone in their cold basement apartment in Edmonton with limited money of their own, Greta and Ash consider their options. A plan to confront their father falls apart, though it does find them a new ally in a classmate and neighbour, Nate. They look for jobs. They approach their landlord, Elgin Doyle, an older man who lives in the upper part of the house, about deferring the rent but instead he offers to let them stay in a spare room he has in return for chores like shovelling snow.

Though initially uncomfortable with their new living situation, the normally-withdrawn Ash seems to come out of himself, cooking with Elgin and standing up for the older man to his hostile adult daughter Alice. But, while Greta grapples with their abandonment, she is also trying to clarify the traumatizing circumstances involving a sexual encounter with Dylan.

She could never make sense of those shards still rattling loose inside her. They dug in, but no matter how long she looked at them, they never formed a whole picture. A grotesque kaleidoscope. When she tried to sort through it, all the colors mixed together until it turned into swamp brown. (pg. 124)

Trail of Crumbs is a story of finding a way to survive the trauma of parental abandonment and of sexual assault. It's about finding family and friends in unlikely allies and trusting those who would support you no matter what. It's not an easy story to read because the trauma is so raw. Even when Greta and Ash try to logically deal with their abandonment, and Greta tries to sort out the events with Dylan, you know they're just struggling to endure, to get through it, to survive. There is a visceral fear about stopping to give in to the anguish and hopelessness. But Lisa J. Lawrence, who wowed critics with her debut novel, Rodent (Orca, 2016), writes with power and intrepidness, never letting us question whether Greta and Ash are real. They are, as are their problems. They've survived trauma after trauma and keep on going. They don't even know how brave they are. They are their own heroes.

That trail of crumbs may be elusive and often invisible, but I was consoled that Greta and Ash found sufficient to keep them bound as siblings with enough left over to lead them to a new support family.

The Silence of Bones

Written by June Hur

Feiwel and Friends

978-1-250229557

336 pp.

Ages 13+

April 2020

The eyes that stare out from the cover of The Silence of Bones are haunted. They are the eyes of sixteen-year-old Seol, a girl indentured to the Capital Police Bureau, who has lost her parents, wants to find her brother or his grave, and is far too curious about those she serves and the investigations in which she must assist. In 1800s Korea, time of the Joseon dynasty, Seol knows her place and, like all servants, knows to "Be cautious. Cross no one. Obey always." (pg. 14)

As a police damo, Seol goes where she is needed to help with female criminals and victims whom the male police are forbidden from touching, according to Confucian tradition. When Lady O, daughter of Cabinet Minister O of Southerner faction, is stabbed and her nose cut off, Seol finds herself talking to her maid, Soyi, and learning about a man and a letter that took the young woman to her death. When Inspector Han discovers Seol eavesdropping and trying to learn more about the murder, he informally mentors her about motives for murder, how to tell if someone is lying, etc. After she saves the inspector's life from a tiger and the two share stories of their families, Seol becomes devoted to Inspector Han. So when evidence is revealed that a man in the blue robe of the inspector was seen near the scene of the crime, Seol tries to help. But the mystery is complicated and Seol begins to wonder if the man she has grown to respect is guilty after all.

Sometimes my reviews cannot do justice to the complexity of the story and such is the case for the extraordinary historical mystery of The Silence of Bones. June Hur has woven countless characters, each with their own motivations revolving around class structure, religion, and family, into an intricate story in which the honourable may not be and the lowly may be of the highest integrity, and vice versa. Amidst the class hierarchy, largely based on birth, in which there are aristocrats, palchŏn (low class), and even baekjeongs (outcasts), June Hur's characters are real but flawed, looking for family and acknowledgement for their efforts, humble and otherwise. But among those characters is evil and...

"...evil comes from the unfulfilled need for significance." (pg. 192)

This is June Hur's debut novel and it is an accomplishment of plot and writing, taking readers into the Korean dynastic kingdom of Joseon at the turn of the 19th c., a time of Confucian traditions, prohibition of Western teachings, and the persecution of Catholics. From behind the covers of the book, you will cheer for those who looked beyond their station, ignoring censure–"This is what happens when a foolish girl thinks she can be someone of consequence. She creates chaos, utter chaos." (pg. 131)–and search for truths, to honour the dead and the living, while you suspect character after character of murder and misdeeds, never guessing where June Hur will take her story. The Silence of Bones has given us a new voice in YA CanLit for which I'll be listening from now on.

Bright Shining Moment

Written by Deb Loughead

Second Story Press

978-1-77260-068-1

178 pp.

Ages 9-13

September 2018

Twelve-year-old Adèline (Aline) Sauriol is ashamed that her family is poor. Even though they have a roof over their heads and food on their table and her clothes are always clean and mended, she is humiliated that she never has coins for the charity box on Sister Madeleine's desk or magazines at home from which she could cut pictures for a scrapbook. And she's especially abashed that Jeanine Bonenfant, her tormentor and a school troublemaker who is always getting the strap (this is 1940s Ottawa), often contributes. This is especially frustrating as it is evident that Jeanine's family is far poorer than Aline's and there are rumours that Jeanine's father is a drunk who beats his children and that Jeanine steals from her ill mother.

I like my house, even though we can only use half of it now and tenants will be living in the other half soon. I like my bed, even though it's in the living room now. I wish we weren't poor, though. I wish Papa didn't scowl so much. I wish we had bright shiny new things like some others do. I wish for a lot of things that I know will never come true. Especially the one for an "English" nose. (pg. 54)

Aline wishes for many things to be different but, in a time of economic hardships, there's not much she can do. And then she steals a dime–she intended to only take a penny–for the charity box only to find it has already been collected from the class. As her guardian angel and the devil–she is a good Catholic girl after all–try to sway her, the girl spends it all on candy for herself and her cousin Lucille, purchasing more than they can possibly eat and hiding the rest. While a shameful reminder of her indiscretion, that bag of candy helps Aline make things right for a number of people, family and not, during times of tragedy and joy.

As with most children, Aline sees what she perceives others to have as better than what she has, whether it be money to share for charity, a big house and hot water as her friend Georgette has, or a radio, beautiful clothes and a Christmas tree as their new tenants, the English-Protestant Coleman family, have. In her home, Aline knows how fortunate she is, proud of her mother's baking and care of her family, or her father's hard work and telling of Ti-Jean stories, and her siblings who bring life to her family. But when at school or on the street or visiting the Coleman's apartment or Georgette's house, she is envious of all they seem to have. Of course, Deb Loughead makes sure that Aline realizes that the grass is not always greener and that there are those who are happy to share their bounty. Fortunately, Deb Loughead's touch in Bright Shining Moment is subtle, never moralizing, always recognizing that people's stories are far greater than outward appearances may suggest. There is an appreciation for those who struggle and understanding for those who put on façades while still recognizing that there are those who are more fortunate and still charitable.

Aline may be searching for bright shiny new things, but Bright Shining Moment is one in itself, with its setting effusive with the times and the lessons both discreet and smart. Amidst her personal struggles with envy and shame and wishes for more, Aline eventually finds that brightness and it comes from the familiar. It comes from home.

A Girl Like That

Written by Tanaz Bhathena

Farrar Straus Giroux

978-0-374-30544-4

369 pp.

Ages 13-18

February 2018

Zarin Wadia, sixteen, is A Girl Like That. She's seen as provocative, rebellious, and clever but her story is one of tragedy from birth to her death.

Zarin's death, along with that of a young man, Porus Dumasia, in a car accident is not a surprise ending. It begins the book with Zarin's guardians, Masi (mother's sister) and Masa (maternal uncle), and Porus's mother wailing over the dead teens. How they got there which is essentially Zarin's back story is the story of A Girl Like That. Told in multiple voices of Zarin, Porus, a gossipy classmate Mishal, and a boy Farhan with whom Zarin becomes involved, Tanaz Bhathena's first young adult novel is a study in nature vs. nurture for a teen whose origins were considered shameful and whose upbringing was rife with physical and emotional abuse. 

Memories...can be like splinters, digging into you when you least expect them to, holding tight and sharp the way wood did when it slid under a fingernail. (pg. 27)

Zarin is never made to feel like she belongs. Not with her Masi and Masa who take her in after her unmarried mother's death or at Qala Academy, the school she attends after they move from India to Saudi Arabia. She is shamed at home by her abusive and mentally ill Masi–and infrequently defended by Masa–for her illegitimacy, her gangster father and issues related to her being a girl. At school, a place where rumours are currency, especially for Mishal the anonymous BlueNiqab blogger and gossip monger, Zarin's classmates look down their noses at her for her heritage and standoffish ways. Still, Zarin endures. She hides the abuses and thumbs her nose at those who shame her. She smokes and she goes riding in cars with boys, an offense according to Sharia law.

And then her childhood Parsi friend, Porus, moves to Jeddah with his mother after the death of his beloved father. Zarin and Porus resume their friendship though it is an unconventional one, with Porus completely smitten and Zarin dating other boys and not sure she is capable of loving anyone. When Zarin is the victim of an assault by Farhan, her world at home and school dissolves into a muddy mess of anger, gossip, shaming, and revenge, with Zarin's desperately searching for courage and safety, within and without.

A Girl Like That is garnering much attention because of Tanaz Bhathena's story about gender inequality and religion-based social restrictions in Saudi Arabia. By focusing on a world that is intimate to many but foreign to so many others, Tanaz Bhathena is both honouring those who live Zarin's life and educating those unfamiliar with the restrictions and distinctions of living with abuse, segregation, cultural discrimination, gender inequality and religious policing.  But beyond the cultural milieu, A Girl Like That is still a statement about the need for self-expression, to fight self and others, to become who you are. Zarin's story is still a tragedy for the abuses inflicted upon her by family, both young men and women, and her cultures but she finds a way to fly, even without wings.

Because a bird only learns to fly when its wings are broken. (pg. 318)

Small Displays of Chaos

by Breanna Fischer

Coteau Books

978-1-55050-661-7

102 pp.

Ages 13+

May 2016

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.  Everything in her life was supposed to be better when she was thinner. (pg. 50)

For Saskatoon teen Rayanne Timko, her eating disorder began with a Phys Ed class fitness goal of healthy eating and improved exercise regime to get a good grade to match those of her academic subjects.  But the recording of all foods and monitoring her physical appearance became a ritual she couldn’t let go, ever hopeful of finding “the person who she wanted to be…hiding somewhere underneath.” (pg.  9).

Now a high school senior, Ray’s life is a complex existence of school counselling sessions, community service at a dog shelter, crushing on Josh Reid who’d witnessed her purging at a party, and convoluted family dynamics with a twin sister, an angry father, a conflicted mother and an impending family wedding that requires her dreading her participation as a bridesmaid.  And I haven’t even mentioned the voice of her judgemental thinner self Edie for whom Rayanne never seems to be good enough.

But even with a referral to an eating disorder specialist, Ray doesn’t know what she needs and finds it hard to ask for help.  It’s not until the family wedding that the desperate teen realizes that she’s been in the “final stage of a grand Disappearing Act” (pg. 74) from which she wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone and could finally just give up.

With all the positive affirmations about body image and awareness campaigns about eating disorders and mental illness, Small Displays of Chaos is still a timely and relevant story that needs to be told and heeded.  Breanna Fischer has based Small Displays of Chaos on her own experience being diagnosed with anorexia with bulimic behaviours and convincingly shares her skewed thinking and dangerous pursuits with candor and insight.  Luckily both Rayanne and Breanna Fischer are able to survive their crises and find the words to astutely convey the depth of those crises to provide valuable lessons. 

Don't Tell, Don't Tell, Don't Tell

by Liane Shaw

Second Story Press

978-1-927583-95-1

272 pp.

Ages 12-16

April 2016

Frederick, 16, in Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell, would loathe to be lumped into a group of individuals with Asperger’s syndrome or labelled with his “disorder”.

Giving me a label groups me together with many others who share a cerain number of common characteristics that would then define me as a syndrome or a disorder rather than a person with a mind of my own.  I don’t want to be a syndrome, and I am far too orderly to be a disorder.
     I just want to be me. (pg. 50)

Though Frederick is different from many of his peers in his love of numbers and math, of routines, and of the dictionary and in the difficulties he has interpreting idioms and slang with which he is unfamilia, he is relatively comfortable in his own skin, having developed some stellar coping strategies for dealing with verbal abuse,  and ensuring that he is able to meet his needs for quiet and routines.  But, when he is befriended by another awkward teen, his routine becomes far more  tenuous and Frederick is taken outside his comfort zone.

Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell begins with Frederick being questioned by the police about the disappearance of the teen who’d befriended him, Angel Martinez.  Though their friendship had been discreet and primarily involved Angel using Frederick as a sounding board, Frederick gets lassoed into keeping a secret for her.  Questioning by the police, however, has Frederick carefully choosing his words, always reminding himself “Don’t tell, don’t tell, don’t tell.” When it seems that Angel’s secret plan isn’t as perfect as anticipated, Frederick begins to rethink that promise and find a way to stay true to himself and bring order to a very disordered situation.

The mature situations that have Angel scrambling for a way out makes Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell more appropriate for a young adult audience but the issue of labelling and keeping secrets are far more universal.  Liane Shaw, whose previous books Fostergirls (Second Story Press, 2011) and The Color of Silence (Second Story Press, 2013) capably dealt with difficult issues of foster care and guilt, continues to demonstrate the empathy needed to understand and help teens with the emotional, behavioural and physical problems.  Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell takes us into the world of a boy with Asperger’s and a girl whose efforts to make friends take a bad turn and demonstrates that we all are looking to find a way to fit into the world, whether it’s a world we make for ourselves or one into which we try to insinuate ourselves.


(A version of this review, in conjunction with one about Everyday Hero by Kathleen Cherry, was originally written for and published in Quill & Quire, as noted in the citation below.)



Kubiw, H. (2016, May). [Review of the book Don't Tell, Don't Tell, Don't Tell by Liane Shaw]. Quill & Quire, 82 (4): 37.

Finding Hope: Blog tour and online book launch

Written by Colleen Nelson

Dundurn Press

978-1-45973-245-2

224 pp.

Ages 14+

March 2016

I am so pleased to be part of Dundurn's blog tour for Colleen Nelson's newest young adult book, Finding Hope.  If you've followed CanLit for LittleCanadians, you'll know that I've previously reviewed her The Fall (Great Plains Teen Fiction, 2013) and 250 Hours (Coteau, 2015) and appreciated her compelling reads about tough issues like death, guilt, bullying and discrimination.  Finding Hope is no less than what I would expect from Colleen Nelson: a gripping novel about the tragedy of shame and the faith that somehow, some way things will right themselves.

Told in the alternating voices of fifteen-year-old Hope and her older brother Eric, Finding Hope examines the sibling relationship and the direction it takes when Eric becomes addicted to meth.  But the story is so much more than that because of a monumental concept called shame and all it entails for both young people.

The story starts in late August just as Hope learns she’ll be leaving their small town of Lumsville and heading to a private school named Ravenhurst School for Girls.  This is something her mother really wants for Hope; in fact, she wanted it for Eric too, pushing him to succeed in hockey, hopeful that it would be his ticket out of Lumsville.  He was good at hockey.  Very good.  So good that he became a “special” mentee for his coach, a relationship that leads to the shame that sets Eric on the meth-addled path to “make it all go away.” (pg. 10)

Shame isn’t a weight or something that gets worn.  It’s elastic, stretching and strangling anything in its reach. (pg. 222)

After Eric's progression through drugs leads him to stop going to school and start doing meth, his mom and step-dad, Hope’s father, kick him out of the house.  But that doesn’t stop Hope from leaving him money and food and whatever else he needs.  Sadly, because of his drug use and the paranoia and anxiety that results, their relationship becomes one of Hope enabling Eric: she feeling guilt for the life she has and he feeling that drugs is the only way to live with his secret shame of sexual abuse by his coach.

But after Eric breaks into a pharmacy, he’s on the run and heading to the same city where Hope is now going to school.  Both are now looking for the means to survive on their own in new environs where unexpected threats continue to arise and for which they are both unprepared.  For Eric, it’s finding the basics of life, like food and shelter, and feeding his addiction.  For Hope, it’s finding a friend, even a boyfriend, with whom she can be herself.  The saving grace for Eric is a discarded puppy he finds, whom he names Storm, and for Hope it’s her ability to put her feelings into poetry. Neither one really knows how to help themselves or each other but somehow that’s what they manage.

Finding Hope is a tragic story of looking for something better, and Colleen Nelson tells it with such beauty and poetry. For Eric and Hope, hope–the concept–is not wishful thinking.  It is an appropriate expectation that the world should right itself.

Broken,
My brother sits beside me
Twisted and used, both of us.
Tangled together
We will find a way
Jumping over
Remnants of our lives,
Making a new path
Together.
(pg. 219)

Online book launch

Tired of never being able to attend book launches?  

Then enjoy the online book launch for Finding Hope.

Visit Colleen Nelson's website at colleennelsonauthor.com to participate in the online book launch for Finding Hope.  If you purchase a copy of the book today from Amazon.ca, you can redeem bonus 'gifts' (all downloadable) including a $1 donation to Pink Shirt Day, an organization that raises funds to support anti-bullying initiatives and awareness.