bullying

Mark your calendars: Saturday, March 16, 2013, 2 PM - 4:30 pm. Book launch party for Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass, ART 180, 114 West Marshall Street, Richmond, VA 23220 Me in the eighth grade. One day back in middle school, a girl I didn't know came up to me and said, "Jackie Delgado is going to kick your ass." If that sounds familiar, it's because it's more or less the title of my new YA novel. I didn't know it then, but that moment was an awful turning point for me. If you've ever been targeted, you know that a low grade dread sets in and crowds out everything else, like your grades, your family, your self esteem. What followed for me were two long years of dodging a school bully and her obnoxious friends who would push me and threaten me, scream out my name and cackle in the halls. I suddenly felt scared to exist at my school, and no adult seemed capable of helping. I learned to avoid classes, to lie to my mother, to hang out with downright dangerous people so that I might become so tough that no one could ever hurt me. I wasn't alone, of course, but you couldn't have told me that. The good news is that, like most of us, I survived. The bad news is that girls like Jackie still exist today, and they're made all the fiercer with their cameras and YouTube sites and Facebook pages. I…