Manteca man throwing the book at bullying

Manteca resident Harry Pacheco recalls his youngest daughter’s excitement to begin kindergarten: backpack ready, lunch made and clothes picked out, all the night before. “Her whole face lit up” as his drove her to school the next morning, the father of four said.

He recalls much less fondly how Naomi was when he picked her up afterward. The smile was gone. Her eyeglasses were conspicuously absent from her face. And she was quiet when he asked how the day went.

He didn’t press her right away, but late in the day, as they were brushing their teeth together before her bedtime, Naomi opened up. She asked if she had to keep wearing glasses. She was the only one in her class who did. Some kids told her glasses are for old people, so she must be old. She was called “four eyes.” She didn’t want to go back to school the next day.

“It was devastating to me,” Pacheco said of the pain the bullying caused his now-7-year-old second-grader.

It moved him enough that he began researching bullying and was surprised it could be a problem as young as kindergarten age. He learned suicide is the fifth leading cause of death or children ages 5 to 14, and the third leading cause for 15- to 24-year-olds, according to sources including the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention.

And the more he looked around, Pacheco, said, he couldn’t find anti-bullying books aimed at the kindergarten and grade school set. So the Realtor and former music producer added another occupation to his résumé: author.

He and illustrator Phill Villanueva of Stockton have published “Gladys Glasses,” the first in a series of five books that will address a range of bullying situations. In the colorful, hardbound book, sweet elephant Gladys begins school with excitement, only to be brought down by classmates who tease her about the pink-frame glasses she loves so much.

Learning what Gladys is going through, her teacher has the class do an activity in which students share what makes them different. Gladys talks about how her glasses help her see, another student shows his inhaler for asthma, and yet another talks about the medicine that helps with his ADD. The exercise helps students gain an appreciation for what sets them apart.

Pacheco said he’s on a mission to raise awareness of bullying. He has “Gladys Glasses” in eight schools in the Manteca and Stockton area, and now in Modesto. He delivered a few copies to Modesto Christian School on Wednesday, where he met with K-8 Principal Matt Diehl.

The men agreed on the importance of teaching children at a young age how to get along with others and treat them kindly. Entering preschool or kindergarten is, for many children, their first social interaction beyond a small group of playmates.

“Two-and-a-half-year-olds coming to school might not even have an older sibling, and now they have to work with 10 or more classmates,” Diehl said. “ ... There’s always that struggle – students trying to usurp or dictate their own authority. It’s very intrinsic, and building love has to start at that preschool, kindergarten age.”

Diehl said Pacheo’s book will be a valuable tool in preventing bullying or nipping it in the bud. High school and middle school students at Modesto Christian regularly read to grade-schoolers, and he’ll include “Gladys Glasses” in that program.

Just as the children in the book learned, he wants students to understand that “failure is not fatal. You made fun of those glasses once, but that’s not who you are, Johnny, or Suzie. You are someone who is going to build your self-esteem through you words and actions, you don’t need to bully.”

Pacheco was born in Guam and came to the U.S. with his family at 6 months old. For his venture into storybook writing, he also tapped into his own childhood experiences.

In the 1980s, there were not a lot of Asians in the Bay Area community he grew up in, which was primarily black and Latino, he said. While other children were packing lunches like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in Transformers and GI Joe lunchboxes, his family sent him with traditional cuisine in paper takeout bags imprinted with the words “Thank You.” Seeing what he was eating, kids would say things like “What’s that smell?” and “Get that away,” which stung.

“Words are powerful,” he said.

When he self-published in November with the backing of an investor, Pacheco had an initial printing of 500 copies of “Gladys Glasses,” but upped that to 1,000. The 36-page work is $11.95 and available on Amazon.com and in some bookstores including Books Inc. locations in San Francisco, Alameda, Berkeley, Mountain View and Palo Alto, he said.

His and Villanueva’s follow-up, “Stanley No Stripes,” should be out in three months, Pacheco said. It’s aimed at an audience up to eighth grade, as its topic is about going through puberty in a different way or at a different time than others.

His third and fourth books are written and going through editing, Pacheco said, and the fifth book is in works. The third book is about disabilities, and the fourth, “Cyrus the Cyberbully,” is about a panda who video-records different people falling down and puts it to music and posts it on social media for laughs. The final book will be about bullying of children because of their socioeconomic status.

This story was originally published February 4, 2016 at 4:21 PM with the headline "Manteca man throwing the book at bullying."