The 2010 suicide in small-town Massachusetts garnered worldwide attention and led to a new awareness of bullying and anti-bullying legislation in dozens of states. Barely fifteen years old, Irish transfer student Phoebe Prince hung herself on a gray, cold, January afternoon after enduring vicious bullying in school and online for months. Why it happened is told, here, for the first time. How it happened was no secret: hundreds of other students knew, as did administrators, school counselors and the nurse, a dozen or more teachers, and administration officials. Yet all took few, or no, steps to prevent the relentless persecution that drove Phoebe to her death. The few who did were run out of the school. This is Phoebe's story. The real story. A true account of how a skewed small-town culture allowed a decades-long school bullying culture to endure and breed the kind of children who would bully a young girl to death without a care, and gloat about their work after she died. A few years earlier, a departing teacher angrily told the principal, "Someone is going to die in your school." Phoebe was that "someone."Tread Softly: Bullying and the Death of Phoebe Prince" is her tragic story, and is endorsed by world-renowned anti bullying expert Barbara Coloroso as "A powerful journey through the back-story of the bullicide of Phoebe Prince... cutting through the news reports, rumors, innuendos and attacks on Phoebe's character... a compelling story of the roots, ways and means, and aftermath of bullying that went unabated even after her death. A must read for teenagers, parents, educators, and anyone who cares about kids.” It is also endorsed by Phoebe's parents, Anne O'Brien and Jeremy Prince, as "the only true and balanced account of a tragedy that will live with us forever. This is Phoebe's voice."
