In 2020, 13-year-old Callum Manning from South Shields, England, created an Instagram account for one simple reason. He loved books and wanted somewhere to share his reviews.
At the time, the page had around 50 followers.
Then some students at his new school found it.
Instead of encouraging him, they created a group chat and mocked him for reading, calling him names like “creep” and “sad weirdo.” Callum was added to the chat and had to watch the messages appear himself.
It hurt more than he expected. He later said it was the first time in a long while that he had actually cried.
His 24-year-old sister, Ellis, decided to do something. She shared what had happened online, hoping maybe 20 or 30 of her friends would follow Callum and leave a few kind comments.
That wasn't what happened.
Within days, Callum went from around 50 followers to hundreds of thousands.
Authors including Neil Gaiman, Malorie Blackman, Matt Haig and Caroline Kepnes reached out. Publishers offered him books. Waterstones encouraged him to keep reviewing and offered him a free book when he next visited.
And Callum kept reading.
The account that classmates had mocked became the place where hundreds of thousands of people came to hear what a 13-year-old thought about the books he loved.
His sister had only wanted a few people to remind him that there was nothing embarrassing about loving books.
She found an entire community waiting to tell him the same thing.