True Notebooks (Alex Awards (Awards)) Book

When Mark Salzman is invited to visit a writing class at Central Juvenile Hall, a lockup for Los Angelesâ??s most violent teenage offenders, he scrambles for a polite reason to decline. He goesâ??expecting the worstâ??and is so astonished by what he finds that he becomes a teacher there himself. True Notebooks is an account of Salzmanâ??s first years teaching at Central. Through it, we come to know his students as he did: in their own words. At times impossible and at times irresistible, they write with devastating clarity about their pasts, their fears, their confusions, their regrets, and their hopes. They write about what led them to crime and to gangs, about love for their mothers and anger toward their (mostly absent) fathers, about guilt for the pain they have caused, and about what it is like to be facing life in prison at the age of seventeen. Most of all, they write about trying to find some reason to believe in themselvesâ??and othersâ??in spite of all that has gone wrong. Surprising, charming, upsetting, enlightening, and ultimately hopefulâ??driven by the insight and humor of Salzmanâ??s voice and by the intelligence, candor, and strength of his students, whose writing appears throughout the bookâ??True Notebooks is itself a reward of the self-expression Mark Salzman teaches: a revelatory meditation on the process, power, and meaning of writing.Read More