What I Came to Tell You , Tommy Hays’ latest novel, is a 2014 VOYA Top Shelf Pick for Fiction for Middle School Readers and a 2015-16 Nominee for the North Carolina Young Adult Award . Written for readers from ages 10 to 100, What I Came to Tell You was a Fall 2013 Okra Pick by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) and selected for the American Booksellers Association’s 2014 ABC Best Books for Children Catalog.
“Tommy Hays tells a story that rips open your heart. This is a novel about what it means to face loss at an early age, and how salvation comes through both the creation of art and acts of every day kindness. I loved this book.” —Holly Goldberg Sloan, author of Counting by 7’s and I’ll Be There
“Tommy Hays has quietly but steadily established himself as one of the South’s finest novelists, and now he has written his best book yet. What I Came to Tell You is a great-hearted novel filled with wisdom and truth.” —Ron Rash, The New York Times best-selling author of Serena