We loved hosting Myfanwy Collins in the store last week for the publication of her young adult novel.  Collins had the crowd in near tears with the dramatic opening scene in the book, and attendees followed with a thoughtful Q&A session about what challenges kids today face in sometimes violent school culture.  She also prefaced her presentation with a list of reasons why she felt had to write this book, and they were so moving we wanted to re-post them from her blog here.

I wrote this book because we live in a sometimes horrible and often beautiful world.

I wrote this book because I did not want you to feel so alone.

I wrote this book because four boys in the town where I used to live used their collective rage, boredom, and feelings of worthlessness to turn the lives of another family into the thing of nightmares.

I…