Grab my Hand and make a difference!

I am sure by now you've seen posts all over cyberspace about Authors, Bloggers, Book-a-haulics in support of Anti-Bullying. October is the month set aside to support anti-bullying campaigns.  I too have felt their pain. I debated for a long time about making this post but decided that my own bullying experiences made me into who and what I am today. I decided that by not speaking out I was allowing those bullies to have power over me as an adult.  If my attackers still had that power over me as an adult then I would still be that victim. So I said NO! 

I was teased because I was skinny and flat-chested, I was teased because I loved to read, I was picked on and I learned to fight back. But not everyone will fight back. And strangely enough now as an adult I am nothing at all like that skinny little girl who they called babs because she spent hours in a tree.  Memories aren't always pleasant but they have created a caring and loving person who hopefully has taught her children to accept others and love them for all the differences of the earth. And while perhaps my bullying experience wasn't as drastic as some kids today face. I had my family and their strength and acceptance. I had friends who stood up for me. So I was one of the lucky ones.

We MUST remember that words can and do harm. It isn't always a punch that scars a person. Words invoke feelings of pain and anger, frustration and anguish, these wounds can be the deepest of all scars because they don't go away and heal as the outside bruises do. Insides require so much more time to heal. The scars can make a person strong and provide a foundation to change the world for the better. or they can cause a fatal tragedy. I was lucky. I formed scar tissue and didn't allow anyone to harm me with words. Some aren't so lucky and it leads them to their doom.

I am very proud to join Sparring Stepsisters and Just my Opinion, along with my blogging and indie author friends and must not forget my book-a-holics. Please won't you join our fight? It isn't hard. All you have to do is grab the picture here just like the one at the top of the post and place it on your facebook page, twitter profile, blog where ever you can think of. Just please Grab a Hand you won't be fighting alone! Stand up! Together we can make a difference and be the change that the world needs!

Please I cannot stress enough... Bullying Can Kill!!! Please help us to put an end to this behavior which is NOT something children need to endure!

Its always darkest before the dawn!

TITLE:  Dark Before Dawn
AUTHOR:  Stacy Juba
PRINT LENGTH:  213 pages
MY RATING:  aaaaa
PUBLISHED: September 24, 2011
LANGUAGE: English
RATING:  Tween/ Young Adult
GENRE:  Paranormal
PURCHASE LINKS: Amazon 

SUMMARY: Psychic chills and thrills in a deserted Maine beach town from the author of Twenty-Five Years Ago Today, Sink or Swim, and Face-Off. When teen psychic Dawn Christian gets involved with a fortune teller mentor and two girls who share her mysterious talents, she finally belongs after years of being a misfit. When she learns her new friends may be tied to freak "accidents" in town, Dawn has an important choice to make - continue developing the talent that makes her special or challenge the only people who have ever accepted her.

REVIEW: Stacy Juba has created a fabulous story for kids and adults. We begin this story with Dawn a young girl with psychic abilities that her mother wants her to hide. She has a premonition that something horrible is going to happen on her first day of school. And boy was she right!

What happens next is the stuff of nightmares. I can’t go into too many details because it would give away the story. But I will say that Juba has created a character family that is so wonderful in all its crazy familial intricacies. The fear Dawn’s mother feels at each and every new psychic awakening. The struggles of a young girl in a new family with a new step-father and step-brother and going to a new high school are all so very believable. The “mis-fits” who Dawn finds and fits in with and the mysterious psychic who is willing to teach children to awaken their inborn talents make this mystery a true page turner.

The twists and turns that this story takes were relatively straight forward and whether it’s my instinctual abilities to deduce what’s going to happen next or a psychic ability I just knew all was not as it seemed. And so I knew something would happen with the psychic but even I never truly expected who she was and why things were happening.

Stacy Juba really needs to continue on with this saga because I feel that there is so much more to be done with Dawn. But it is a strongly written piece and I do recommend this book to children aged 10 and up. I really believe that young and old alike will love this tale and as a woman whose own children are different I can say that this is a wonderful story of how children treat their peers and a good lesson on how to treat those that are different than you. And while it wasn’t written to be a lesson on acceptance of others it is indeed a story about accepting who you are regardless of your differences. So please do go out and grab a copy of this book because it is well worth the read and will keep you flipping those pages to find out what happens next.

Details/Disclaimer: Review copy was provided to me in exchange for a fair and honest review. The free book held no determination on my personal review.