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True Notebooks

Audiobook
When Mark Salzman is invited to visit a writing class at Central Juvenile Hall, a lockup for Los Angeles’s most violent teenage offenders, he scrambles for a polite reason to decline. He goes—expecting the worst—and is so astonished by what he finds that he becomes a teacher there himself. True Notebooks is an account of Salzman’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 themselves—and others—in spite of all that has gone wrong.
Surprising, charming, upsetting, enlightening, and ultimately hopeful—driven by the insight and humor of Salzman’s voice and by the intelligence, candor, and strength of his students, whose writing appears throughout the book—True Notebooks is itself a reward of the self-expression Mark Salzman teaches: a revelatory meditation on the process, power, and meaning of writing.

Expand title description text
Publisher: Books on Tape Edition: Unabridged
Awards:

OverDrive Listen audiobook

  • ISBN: 9780739349489
  • File size: 287156 KB
  • Release date: June 3, 2003
  • Duration: 09:58:14

MP3 audiobook

  • ISBN: 9780739349489
  • File size: 287230 KB
  • Release date: June 3, 2003
  • Duration: 09:58:07
  • Number of parts: 14

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Formats

OverDrive Listen audiobook
MP3 audiobook

Languages

English

Levels

Lexile® Measure:780
Text Difficulty:3-4

When Mark Salzman is invited to visit a writing class at Central Juvenile Hall, a lockup for Los Angeles’s most violent teenage offenders, he scrambles for a polite reason to decline. He goes—expecting the worst—and is so astonished by what he finds that he becomes a teacher there himself. True Notebooks is an account of Salzman’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 themselves—and others—in spite of all that has gone wrong.
Surprising, charming, upsetting, enlightening, and ultimately hopeful—driven by the insight and humor of Salzman’s voice and by the intelligence, candor, and strength of his students, whose writing appears throughout the book—True Notebooks is itself a reward of the self-expression Mark Salzman teaches: a revelatory meditation on the process, power, and meaning of writing.

Expand title description text
  • Details

    Publisher:
    Books on Tape
    Edition:
    Unabridged

    Awards:

    OverDrive Listen audiobook
    ISBN: 9780739349489
    File size: 287156 KB
    Release date: June 3, 2003
    Duration: 09:58:14

    MP3 audiobook
    ISBN: 9780739349489
    File size: 287230 KB
    Release date: June 3, 2003
    Duration: 09:58:07
    Number of parts: 14

  • Creators
  • Formats
    OverDrive Listen audiobook
    MP3 audiobook
  • Languages
    English
  • Levels
    Lexile® Measure: 780
    Text Difficulty: 3-4
  • Reviews
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