By Gabriela Baron

A 13-year-old who was bullied for his love for books has become an Instagram sensation after top authors showered him their support.

Callum Manning said that he created an Instagram account last week to write posts about some of the books he had read but was left “devastated” after other pupils at his new school set up a group chat to insult his page.

“I don’t tend to cry that often but I think that was the first time in a while I’ve actually cried,” he said.

Things turned around when Callum’s sister, Ellis Landreth, wrote about the incident on Twitter.

She posted a picture of Callum’s Instagram account and wrote: “I can’t believe how awful kids are,” explaining how his brother was being bullied for setting up an Instagram account to review his favorite books.

Can’t believe how awful kids are. My little brothers made an Instagram reviewing and talking about books and kids in his new school have seen it and have created a group chat calling him a creep slagging him off about it and added him to it so he could see pic.twitter.com/wuuj2XlO34 — Ellis (@EllisLandreth1) February 29, 2020

“All I was expecting was a few of my followers to show him some encouragement and support, and that he wasn’t weird or sad for preferring to read,” Ellis told CNN.

But then the Internet did its thing. The tweet has received positive messages including from authors Malorie Blackman, David Nicholls, Giles Paley-Phillips, and Matt Haig who encouraged his followers to follow Callum. Within hours, Callum’s Instagram account has skyrocketed from 39 followers to a hundred thousand.

Sending Callum some books. pic.twitter.com/lGuxr4MnHm — Matt Haig (@matthaig1) March 2, 2020

As of this writing, Callum has nearly 300,000 followers.

Caroline Kepnes, author of the book “You” which inspired the Netflix hit, also contacted Callum.

It is devastating and I would very much like to send Cal some books. — Caroline Kepnes (@CarolineKepnes) March 1, 2020

“She’s one of my favorite authors – she texted us, which was really cool. Obviously I’m a really big fan so I was kind of nervous but that was really cool,” he shared.

Among the books reviewed on Callum’s account are works by Jane Austen, George Orwell, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, as well as the “Harry Potter,” “Game of Thrones,” and “Twilight” series.