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4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
While some readers may view this book as another great white hope story, I enjoyed Salzman's honest portrait of his experiences teaching a writing class to incarcerated teenagers. My take away-- writing has the power to give us hope and a voice in situations where we have none.
The reason I read this book in two days isn't just because I had to for school--it's because it's a total page-turner, so natural and well written that you don't even realize that you're reading so much because you just have to keep turning pages. This book could be eye opening for a lot of people, and it's also just really good memoir for people who aren't looking to be enlightened so much as they're just looking for a good book. But it's also pretty enlightening, and it's something I'd like to do in the future as a librarian working with at-risk youth.
I really enjoyed this book (well, enjoyed might not be quite the right word since the topic is dark). Regardless of your beliefs on crime, the justice system, gangs, etc., this book will make you sit back and think. I think the author did an excellent job of capturing the feeling of living in a youth detention center by interweaving the writings of his students with his own experiences at that location. I highly recommend this book to everyone!!!
A great book about teaching, and also a great spiritual memoir, though Salzman wouldn't classify it as such.
Read for my class (Library Services to Under-Served Populations) and I couldn't put it down. For once I actually finished something early! :) It's hard to know how you should feel after reading it... on one hand you feel bad for these kids, and then you realize that most of them have murdered someone. Really makes you realize that early intervention is so important in the lives of troubled kids.
I really enjoyed this book. Mark Salzman has become one of my favorite authors. He wrote "Lying Awake", which is on my top 15 favorite books (if I had one). The last line of this book was one of the best endings that I have ever read; it was so very bittersweet. I liked it because it was about the process of writing + working with troubled young people. It was interesting to read what they were able to express once they had a means of doing so. True Notebooks was a touching and troubling book.
I work with adolescents in drug rehab and I keep finding myself attracted to books like this or 'always runnings' and they continue to be a let down.
The bittersweet and powerful account of author Mark Salzman's work with teenage boys incarcerated in juvenile hall. The students' writing is exquisite -- their heartfelt stories, poems, memories, and ponderings send readers on an emotional rollercoaster. The insights into these young lives should leave all wondering: what can society do to prevent the situations these boys find themselves in and how can we help rehabilitate those who end up in juvenile hall? One of the few books I have reread.
Thank you Mark for giving your time to these boys and letting the rest of us know they are there and that they are human beings worth some time.
I've recently become the librarian at a juvenile justice center and, being new to this area of librarianship, I wanted to get a better grasp on what it was like working with these youth and the facility staff. I started this book when I was brand new: two weeks into the job. Having a few months under my belt, I tend to think that either Salzman has taken some artistic liberties with the facility staff (so far, they have been painted very negatively) or the staff at his facility are much harder than those at mine. So far, the rest of it seems spot on -- the benefits of working with these youth clearly shine through, and that's been my experience so far as well. I'll keep reading through it (although I wonder what type of point he's trying to make) and update this once I'm finished.