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What picture forms in your mind when you hear the word ""? Do you picture a big kid with bulging muscles and a on his face? The traditional image of a bigger kid stealing a smaller kid's lunch money certainly holds true from time to time.

But did you realize that not all bullies are big? It's true. Bullies come in all shapes and sizes - and they can be boys or girls. Some bullies - called cyber bullies - can't even be seen because they cause problems online rather than in person.

When you mention bullying, most kids have a good idea of what it is. Bullying is acting in a way that's purposefully mean or hurtful toward another person. The targets of bullies are often people who have trouble standing up for themselves.

Bullying actions can take many forms. Sometimes it is , such as pushing, hitting or kicking. Many times, though, bullying is , like using hurtful words, teasing or threatening others.

Whatever form the actions take, they can have major effects. Bullying hurts feelings and can make children feel isolated, scared, sad, embarrassed and even sick. Some students who are bullied regularly end up skipping school to avoid bullies.

Why do bullies do what they do? The simple answer is it makes them feel better about themselves and gets them the they may be seeking. Bullies get satisfaction from the people have to their actions. When bullies are mean and the of their actions cries or runs away, this makes bullies feel important and happy because they are in control.

Have you ever been bullied by someone? If you have, you know how bad it can feel. Don't think you're , though. You might be surprised to learn how many kids have been bullied at one time or another.

Experts believe that as many as 75% of the children in the United States have been bullied at some point in time. Unfortunately , being bullied sometimes leads children to others as a way of dealing with their own bad feelings from being bullied.

The good news is that, with practice, you can learn how to manage your reactions to bullying. If you don't give a the he or she wants, chances are that you'll take that power away from the .

You can also learn how to create an atmosphere in your school where bullying will not be tolerated. This might include choosing to act with kindness toward everyone you meet. It might also mean not participating when someone is made fun of, and standing up for others who are being bullied.

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What picture forms in your mind when you hear the word ""? Do you picture a big kid with bulging muscles and a on his face? The traditional image of a bigger kid stealing a smaller kid's lunch money certainly holds true from time to time.

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Clara's journey: 9-year-old with deformed face navigates the world

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Clara Beatty was born with rare genetic mutation called Treacher Collins syndrome, causing deformed face

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Kendra has Treacher Collins Syndrome. Never heard of it? You are not alone. Treacher Collins Syndrome is rare and strikes about one in ten thousand. It is a craniofacial genetic disorder primarily affecting the structures of the head and face.

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How it Feels to Live with a Physical Disability

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How it Feels to Live with a Physical Disability

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Essays: How It Feels to Live with a Physical Disability

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But then life got a lot worse. Spit wads, peashooters, and other makeshift weapons became the rage, the ultimate tools of harassment. Verbal abuse still accompanied the physical abuse. The kids would sneak up on me and launch a spit wad, taking pleasure at my reactions. They called me names.

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Real Life 'Wonder' Kids Talk about their Lives

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Real Life 'Wonder' Kids Talk about their Lives

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The new movie, Wonder, starring Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson, follows a young boy named August Pullman who was born with facial differences (author R.J. Palacio has said his condition is based on the genetic disorder Treacher Collins). The film is shining a spotlight on the hardships people endure when they have a condition that disfigures their appearance.

People Now sat down with five children who have such disorders-including Treachers Collins syndrome, Van der Woode syndrome, Nager Syndrome, Goldenhar Syndrome and cleft lip and palate-to discuss their lives and how they deal with adversity. The kids, who age from 9 to 13, have all learned to deal with often rude questions from strangers about their condition. Often, they have to cope with bullying, but they have remained resilient through it all.

"Don't let anyone make fun of you, they're not going to be important in your life," 11-year-old Ana Perez, who was born with a cleft lip and palate, says about facing bullying. "Know you can overcome it."

The children hope Wonder, based on the popular YA novel by R. J. Palacio, will help to show audiences nationwide that they deserved to be treated with kindness, and, as 13-year-old Flossy Fogarty tells People Now, how they look on the outside doesn't reflect who they are on the inside.

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Real-Life Wonder Kids Talk About Their Lives and How They 'Shake Off' Bullying

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The new movie, Wonder, starring Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson, follows a young boy named August Pullman who was born with facial differences (author R.J. Palacio has said his condition is based on the genetic disorder Treacher Collins). The film is shining a spotlight on the hardships people endure when they have a condition that disfigures their appearance.

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Libertyville youth speaks as part of 'Choose Kind'

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Libertyville youth speaks as part of 'Choose Kind'

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Pete Dankelson has not had the easiest life. But you couldn't tell by his upbeat demeanor during a talk the Libertyville High School junior gave to Monticello students Friday (Nov. 3). Born with serious birth defects that resulted in some craniofacial issues and 29 surgeries in his 17 years, he used insight and humor in his presentation entitled "Make Kindness Your Superhero."

The assembly was part of the Choose Kind effort undertaken at Monticello schools this semester, activities that are based on the book "Wonder." The popular youth book chronicles the struggles of August "Auggie" Pullman, a boy with facial differences who enters fifth grade, attending a mainstream elementary school for the first time. It is being released in movie form on Nov. 17.

Dankelson told students in Monticello "I am an Auggie," and said he identifies with the book and its main character.

"It changed my life because it gave me a hero to look up to," said Dankelson of the book authored by R.J. Palacio. "The best thing about 'Wonder' being popular is it has brought positive attention to those with facial differences."

He pointed out movie characters with scars are generally the villains, and quipped that "it gives good guys like me a bad rap. It's just not fair.

"I mean, come on. Do I look like a villain?" he added as his audience laughed.

But in his Choose Kind way, Dankelson gave some advice to students when they run across someone with facial differences.

On the "do" list is smiling and saying "hi," and taking a second look and using positive words like "difference." The "don'ts" include being afraid, staring and whispering and using negative words like "deformity."

The high schooler said he speaks every few weeks at various venues, and told local students he loves to shred AC/DC and Guns and Roses licks on his electric guitar, is an avid Star Wars fan and adores his dogs Dexter and Abby.

"They don't care what you look like. They love unconditionally and without judgement," he said.

Pete's mom Dede discussed some of the struggles her son faces, such as not being able to go underwater due to breathing limitations caused by the Goldenhar Syndrome he was born with. He also uses a breathing tube, has a bone-anchored hearing aid and a prosthetic ear.

The mother/son duo also led a sampling of students in an object lesson aimed at showing how hurtful words never go away, despite apologies.

Grouped in pairs, one participant crumpled a piece of paper, then smoothed it out the best they could. The other participant pretended they had done something hurtful and apologized.

But the paper still had wrinkles.

"Does the paper look the same? Will the paper every look the same again?" said Dede. "When we insult someone, or say unkind things, they get wrinkles inside just like those papers. And they never truly go away. We can apologize, but the apologies don't take away the wrinkles, do they?"

In concluding his speech, Pete led students in a mantra he hopes can be part of their lives:

"Kindness is free. Kindness is contagious. Kindness is cool."

Additional information on Dankelson is available at his website, petesdiary.org.

Monticello elementary and middle school students were all given a copy of "Wonder" or its picture book for younger ages entitled "We're All Wonders," thanks to local sponors. Students will also attend a showing of the movie Nov. 20-21 and keep the Choose Kind theme the entire school year.

White Heath Elementary Media Center Specialist Kristi Crook said the effort has already reaped benefits.

"Washington School has written their own precepts or words to live by and posted them all over their school. Their doors are decorated in the theme of Wonder. White Heath had a birthday party to celebrate Auggie's birthday and has a third grade Wonder Club that does kind things for our school and community," she said.

"Lincoln has bulletin boards decorated and the teachers are doing activities in classrooms to promote kindness. The high school painted rocks with Choose Kind messages and placed them around town for others to find. Kindness is contagious and we are excited that all of students and staff members from Small Wonders - high school seniors have been involved in the kindness movement.

"We've had other schools contact us to start similar programs in their schools. We have had amazing support from our local businesses and continue to have sponsors contacting us to ask how they can do more," added Crook.

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Libertyville youth speaks as part of Choose Kind

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Pete Dankelson has not had the easiest life. But you couldn't tell by his upbeat demeanor during a talk the Libertyville High School junior gave to Monticello students Friday (Nov. 3). Born with serious birth defects that resulted in some craniofacial issues and 29 surgeries in his 17 years, he used insight and humor in his presentation entitled "Make Kindness Your Superhero."

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Nikki Alvarez, Communication Designer

Nikki is part illustrator, part designer, part writer, and spends her days at Hero promoting the ways positive reinforcement and inspiring customers are changing the face of education.

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Nikki Alvarez, Communication Designer Nikki is part illustrator, part designer, part writer, and spends her days at Hero promoting the ways positive reinforcement and inspiring customers are changing the face of education.

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Auggie (August) Pullman is ten years old. He loves Xbox, his dog, Daisy, and he really loves Star Wars. His favorite character is Jango Fett, and he used to have a small braid in the back of his head like a Padawan Jedi apprentice. His favorite holiday is Halloween, and his birthday is October 10th.

Auggie has had twenty-seven surgeries-some big, some small-and he has some medical mysteries that doctors still haven't figured out. All of this comes from a specific gene. His parents and his sister, Via, each carry the gene, too, but only Auggie shows it.

The way he looks makes people stare, which he's used to. It also makes it hard for him to hear (but he has a new hearing aid that makes a big difference), and sometimes it's hard to tell when he's smiling. Because of his surgeries, Auggie was homeschooled for a long time, but started going to Beecher Prep in fifth grade, where he made a lot of new friends. He smiles a lot now.

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Auggie (August) Pullman is ten years old. He loves Xbox, his dog, Daisy, and he really loves Star Wars. His favorite character is Jango Fett, and he used to have a small braid in the back of his head like a Padawan Jedi apprentice. His favorite holiday is Halloween, and his birthday is October 10th.

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'Wonder' what it's like to have kids stare at you?

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'Wonder' what it's like to have kids stare at you?

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Raquel Jaramillo's debut novel, Wonder, written under the pen name R.J. Palacio, was born out of a rather embarrassing incident. The author was out with her two sons, sitting in front of an ice cream store. Her oldest had just finished fifth grade, and her youngest was still in a stroller. They spotted a girl whose face had been deformed by a medical condition.

"It was just one of those terrible moments when my kids didn't react the way I would've wanted them to react," Jaramillo tells NPR's Steve Inskeep. "In order to spare this little girl's feelings, I ended up just kind of running away from the scene."

She felt terrible about the incident, and replayed it over and over in her mind. That night, she began writing a story about a fifth-grade boy nicknamed Auggie who struggles to feel ordinary with everyone constantly staring at him.

"I won't describe what I look like," Auggie narrates in the first chapter. "Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse."

Auggie tends to get sick and often needs to undergo surgeries, so his parents home-schooled him until the fifth grade. When he leaves home to enter middle school, he encounters students and teachers who treat him with varying degrees of kindness and disgust.

Jaramillo says she wanted young readers to see things through Auggie's eyes, to understand how people with physical deformities experience the world.

"What he looks like, in a sense, is very incidental to him," says the author. "He really doesn't dwell on that very much. What he dwells on is the reaction that people have to him. Because all he wants is to be an ordinary kid. But he really can't, because he'll always have people staring at him and reacting to him in a certain way."

Middle school is a tough time. I don't know what it is about the middle school experience that turns kids into 'The Lord of the Flies,' but it just does seem to be that way.

Jaramillo didn't want to reduce the other kids in Wonder to mere bullies. That would have made them too easy to villainize. Instead, Auggie's tormenters remind him in painfully subtle ways that he is being looked at. One character mentions a Star Wars character with a burned face.

"Middle school is a tough time," says Jaramillo. "I don't know what it is about the middle school experience that turns kids into The Lord of the Flies, but it just does seem to be that way."

However, Jaramillo says she found that expressions of kindness were more interesting to write about than acts of meanness. "Maybe because the expectation is that kids will be mean to one another, whenever one kid shows any kind of kindness or is noble, it almost takes on an extraordinary act of courage," says Jaramillo. "You're really rooting for the kids who stand up for Auggie. Ultimately, it's a feel-good book because it is a meditation on kindness and the impact of kindness."

Throughout Wonder, one of Auggie's teachers writes what he calls "precepts" - or fundamental rules - on the blackboard. His first lesson: Given a choice between being right and being kind, choose to be kind.

"I think it's that choice that's so important," says Jaramillo. "That becomes the subtext of the entire book. It's really not so much about bullying at all, in fact. It's really about how ... Auggie comes into their lives and they all become better for it. And they all rise to the occasion and become protective of him. He becomes part of their community."

Writing Wonder made Jaramillo reflect on her own junior high school experience. "Could I have been nicer?" she wonders. "Was I nice? I think somewhere in between nice and not nice is where many people are. It's funny because a lot of people have told me that they identify with the book not because they have experienced bullying, but because when they were younger they remember that there were times when they could've been nicer."

Many readers have told Jaramillo that they remember acts of kindness from their middle school days much more vividly than acts of bullying.

"They'll remember the girl that was really nice to them and sat with them," she says. "In the end, I started thinking that ultimately it is those moments of ... kindness that people ultimately remember more than the other stuff."

Now, when Jaramillo sees her children's classmates, she thinks about how she treated others at their age.

"It's tough to go back sometimes and think about who you were," she says. "I certainly was not a mean girl at all. I think was a very, very nice girl, but I think I could've been nicer at times, too."

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'Wonder' What It's Like To Have Kids Stare At You?

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In R.J. Palacio's new novel, a middle-schooler with a facial deformity struggles to fit in. Raquel Jaramillo, the author behind the pen name, says she found it more interesting to write about teens being kind than about teens being mean.