The original release came as a profound shock and prompted positive and immediate action by governments, education authorities, schools and citizen groups around the world. It spawned countless other books, scholarly studies and papers and media campaigns, inspired plays and movies.
So I considered its job done and resisted requests for re-release when it went out of print. But there's been such high demand that I decided to re-think that decision.
The re-release is NOT an update, more a history lesson and a reminder of just how shamfully secret the bullycide epidemic had been up to the end of the last century and publication of the exposé.
As I re-read the original, added a new introduction and proof read, the tears flowed just as freely as when I investigated the unacknowledged problem and wrote the words all those years ago. Memories came rushing back of the shattered families I’d spoken to (most still in a state of shock); of children who could speak only from the grave, having chosen in their pain and desperation to make their statements through a last, desperate action: the chilling statement that life for them was a fate worse than death.
The re-release is timed to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the first release of Bullycide: Death at Playtime and the word 'bullycide' entering the vocabulary, and also with the fifth anniversary of the death of my dear friend, co-author and tireless anti-bullying campaigner to the end, Tim Field.
May kids everywhere have a happy Christmas and a bully-free New Year as we enter the second decade of, hopefully, a more enlightened century.
Love. Neil
Posts
Excellent news, Neil, and the book thoroughly deserves the re-release.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant Neil - re-releases are interesting, not only because they catch another wave of readers who were either too young before, or unaware, or untouched by the topic. They are also interesting because they manage to acquire new reviews and show new ways to view the text.
ReplyDeleteWe tend to think that texts are static once they get ink, but they really have a life of their own, and even the author can see new things that do not seem like they were there before.
Congratulations once more.
Great pub shot, by the way.
Thanks, Pete and Rosanne:
ReplyDeleteI honestly did think this one had passed its sell-by date until I was pressed into re-release and read the piece again for the first time in many years (using my sole remaining and well-battered working copy of the softback).
It soon became apparent that the guts of the book are as fresh and relevant as ever. It's heavily-driven by my original and deep case history research and hundreds of intimate interviews. And that doesn't appear to have been extended, or even attempted, in any of the later works 'Bullcide' inspired.
The kids featured are still as dead as they ever were, the stories still wring tears from my eyes. It's still a 'today' story. The problem may now be recognised, but it certainly has NOT gone away.
And I was also dismayed to see a rare first edition copy of what I thought was an important book, made for sharing and empowerment, offered as a collector's item at Amazon for an obscene $265!
Let's see how she blows. I have a strong feeling that the low-priced ebook version and a print version at around half the cost of the first edition will see even wider exposure than first time around.
Much of the proceeds will go to *The Field Foundation* set up by my late co-author, the tirelessly campaigning Dr Tim Field who continued to battle bullying until his death ... five years ago on release date of this new edition in January. Release also coincides with the tenth anniversary of original launch.
Cheers. Neil