“Please let Anna Mendez know her son’s story saved my son’s life” - letter to OC Register

The Daniel Mendez Story

For some kids, high school is a time they will never forget filled with friends, Friday night football games, and first loves. For others, however, severe and long-term bullying can make high school damaging at best and even fatal. Alarming statistics show that the phenomenon known as bullycide is on the rise and that the classrooms and gymnasiums parents expect their children to be safe in may be more dangerous than once thought.

This book sweeps the reader into the life of a teen on the wrong side of bullying, his desperate struggle to save himself and the fatal consequences of looking the other way. It explores profound questions of our society’s values, its moral code and the primitive dynamics of mob behavior. The book shines a glaring light on the lack of human dignity our children are afforded today in hopes of creating the much needed change that must take place in all of society so that bullycide can one day become a thing of the past.

Read the whole story.  The abuse, the death, the denials, the cover up, the shattered friends, their subsequent struggle with the powers that be and their unstoppable crusade to expose the truth for the sake of all kids who are being abused and traumatized.

A Note About the Author

Anna DiPronio Mendez lived through a parent’s worst nightmare when she lost her only son to bullying related suicide. For years, Daniel suffered nonstop verbal and physical assaults that inevitably led to his shocking death at the tender age of sixteen in an otherwise quiet suburb of Orange County, California. It has become the Mendez family’s mission to spread awareness of the severe impact that bullying has on its victims so that changes will be made to stop the social epidemic known as bullycide.  Since their son’s death, they have started a non-profit foundation called the National Association of People Against Bullying (NAPAB) that offers support and resources to bullied children and their families. 

If These Halls Could Talk is now available on Amazon.