Walter Myers: Hi, my name is Walter Dean Myers and I'm the author of Monster. I conducted hours and hours of interviews with prisoners and spent many long days in courthouses before I sat down to write this book. During the interviews and the days in court, I realized that one moment of not thinking, one simple mistake could ruin a young person's life. I also understood that the mistakes were easy to make when young people did not have a firm moral base to begin with.

This is the beginning of the book and it's Steve Harmon writing in his diary and he's talking about how he feels being in prison.

The best time to cry is at night when the lights are out and someone is being beaten up and screaming for help. That way, even if you sniffle a little they won't hear you. If anybody knows that you are crying, they'll start talking about it and soon it'll be your turn to get beat up when the lights go out. There's a mirror over the steel sink in my cell. It's six inches high and scratched with the names of some guys who were here before me. When I look into the small rectangle, I see a face looking back at me but I don't recognize it. It doesn't look like me. I couldn't have changed that much in a few months. I wonder if I will look like myself when this trial is over.