Book Description
Straight from the front line of urban America, the inspiring story of one fiercely determined teacher and her remarkable students.
As an idealistic twenty-three-year-old English teacher at Wilson High School in Long beach, California, Erin Gruwell confronted a room of “unteachable, at-risk” students. One day she intercepted a note with an ugly racial caricature, and angrily declared that this was precisely the sort of thing that led to the Holocaust—only to be met by uncomprehending looks. So she and her students, using the treasured books Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl and Zlata’s Diary: A Child’s Life in Sarajevo as their guides, undertook a life-changing, eye-opening, spirit-raising odyssey against intolerance and misunderstanding. They learned to see the parallels in these books to their own lives, recording their thoughts and feelings in diaries and dubbing themselves the “Freedom Writers” in homage to the civil rights activists “The Freedom Riders.”
With funds raised by a “Read-a-thon for Tolerance,” they arranged for Miep Gies, the courageous Dutch woman who sheltered the Frank family, to visit them in California, where she declared that Erin Gruwell’s students were “the real heroes.” Their efforts have paid off spectacularly, both in terms of recognition—appearances on “Prime Time Live” and “All Things Considered,” coverage in People magazine, a meeting with U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley—and educationally. All 150 Freedom Writers have graduated from high school and are now attending college.
With powerful entries from the students’ own diaries and a narrative text by Erin Gruwell, The Freedom Writers Diary is an uplifting, unforgettable example of how hard work, courage, and the spirit of determination changed the lives of a teacher and her students.
The authors’ proceeds from this book will be donated to The Tolerance Education Foundation, an organization set up to pay for the Freedom Writers’ college tuition. Erin Gruwell is now a visiting professor at California State University, Long Beach, where some of her students are Freedom Writers.
Customer Reviews:
Review of Freedom Writers Diary.......2007-10-10
The book is a great read. I would definitely recommend to teachers, especially those that teach or will teach a widely diversified class. Not just teachers should read it. You really get an idea how crazy being racist and prejudiced is and how many people can be hurt by it. Nothing was edited so you get the full feelings of what those teenagers lived through.
I wonder what it was actually like..........2007-09-12
There were lots of positives and negatives that stuck out to me when I read this book which really bothered me.
Let's start with the teacher. We get occasional reflections from Erin Gruwell throughout the book, and in the beginning, they provide a way for us to get to know the teacher and to experience some of the adversity and the troubles that she was experiencing with running her classroom in the unorthodox style she managed. As the book progresses, the majority of these insights begin to fade into a simple account of what she did, the awards they won, and the plans that she had. For instance, she briefly mentions that she had to struggle to teach these kids for their senior year, and then she breezes over how she got that done and launches into an explanation of the binding of their book and the two awards ceremonies that she's attending. This robs the teachers out there of a great potential resource for them to use and understand, and glosses over the reality of politics in education.
The other issue I had was with the journal entries of the students. While I'd love to believe what I'm seeing, I have a difficult time believing that these entries the children wrote were not blown a little out of proportion during the editing or completely contrived from the get-go. Before you jump all over me for having a lack of faith in these kids, look at what we're presented with: the first few journal entries, which these kids supposedly wrote on the first few days of class are every bit as long and as detailed as their later entries in their senior year...and this is supposedly when they were well below the rest of their grade and their expected reading level, and when they had no faith in their teacher whatsoever. What we are left with, then, is a look only at where they were during their junior and senior years, with no gauge of progress or results to compare.
Because of the way the book was put together (entries are numbered rather than being entered chronologically, and no students are named), there is a lack of continuity between chapters, and no characters. Thus, all we are left with are two styles of entries: 1) the entries about struggles and hardships, and 2) the hopeful entries. You are completely unable to identify the students and connect who wrote which entries unless the stories are about a single club or experience. I would much rather have seen the students be given fake names to keep their anonymity protected, because then we not only benefit from a more personal connection to the students, but we also get to see how they've grown from their struggles, and we could break up some of the monotony between struggle stories and hope stories.
Then you get the obligatory "Anne Frank [or insert speaker here] is my hero" entries that read almost exactly like essays that I used to write for the sole purpose of appeasing a teacher who clearly has a tremendous interest in the speaker or book. While the experiences these students had were much more impressive than a simple book or movie, the similarity is astonishing, and I can't help but believe that these kids felt a lot of pressure and wrote what they felt the teacher wanted to hear rather than what they actually felt.
The entries that we are presented with in this book are also extremely toned down versions of the original, which in some sense steals from the power that they can convey. As a couple of students pointed out, the editing process was a big part of putting this book together, and I'm not sure whether it was the authors themselves or the publisher, but the snippets that we are given in the diaries are about the editing process are much more honest and graphic accounts of what happened to the students than the full diaries that we are given in the pages of the book. Some were certainly removed to protect anonymity, and probably also because of their graphic nature, but I believe that readers could have benefited from a slightly more realistic tone. The PG13 edit that the majority of these accounts are given strips the events of their power.
On the whole, though, that doesn't take away from the fact that Gruwell is clearly a very gifted teacher, and that she did take these children much farther than anyone ever expected of her. The lessons in the book are timeless, in that classroom management is all about building relationships, not only amongst students, but also between the teacher and the students. It's inspirational, and impressive, but clearly a bit contrived and heavily, heavily edited. This book is a pretty good read, but I think you have to take it with a grain of salt.
An inspiring story........2007-08-27
I loved reading the stories from the voices of the various students and hearing how they discovered love and hope despite their difficult home lives.
Got my daughter to read.......2007-08-23
This is an excellent book for a non reader, especially if they have seen the movie. My daughter thoroughly enjoyed the book and she is not really a reader. it has now encouraged her to move on to a Diary of Anne Frank. Thank you
A Great Read.......2007-08-14
An extra-ordinary book. I bought 3 copies to give away to friends. A very easy read and very enjoyable. Not just for educators.
Book Description
When ZlataÂ's Diary was first published at the height of the Bosnian conflict, it became an international bestseller and was compared to The Diary of Anne Frank, both for the freshness of its voice and the grimness of the world it describes. It begins as the day-today record of the life of a typical eleven-year-old girl, preoccupied by piano lessons and birthday parties. But as war engulfs Sarajevo, Zlata Filipovi´c becomes a witness to food shortages and the deaths of friends and learns to wait out bombardments in a neighborÂ's cellar. Yet throughout she remains courageous and observant. The result is a book that has the power to move and instruct readers a world away.
Customer Reviews:
Great Book .......2007-05-25
Sheesh...this is the product of a child, not the work of a Pulitzer prize winning journalist. It is an excellent diary, an excellent primary source and an excellent text for a better understanding of the Yugoslav wars. Yes...it does only tell one point of view - hers - it is her diary! Some readers are offended because of the comparison to Anne Frank; a comparison that Filipovic and others make in the book. The comparison is totally fair. Both are intelligent children caught up in situations they have no control over during wars of ethnic cleansing and extermination. It is a testament to Zlata that she can make the connection to Anne Frank...obviously the rest of the world couldn't. They (We) abandoned the Jews sixty years ago and abandoned hundreds of thousands of Croats/Bosniaks/Serbs to genocide forty years later. Zlata remembered Anne Frank's words...the world didn't.
Good read.......2007-05-07
I remember reading this book as a child and picked it up again as an adult. It was a quick read, but really showed how a child deals with war. It made me think of how children in Iraq are feeling right now. Very interesting.
It's a diary, not a book........2007-05-04
To the reader who wrote comment "we all had our delusional moments when we were teenagers"...you should be ashamed of yourself. This "delusional moment" was war and struggle for survival in besieged city of Sarajevo.
Why don't you try and write a book, and/or diary, sitting in a basement without food, water and electricity for four years. All that while granates and bombs are raining on your city. In the meantime, one by one, all of your neighbors and friends are gone six feet under...
How about that for delusional moment...
Zlata's Diary.......2007-04-20
Zlata's Diary is about a young girl's diary named Mimi during the war in her town of Sarajeavo. She writes of the hardships of being a war child. She tells of the changes of her world during the war such as her parents may have grown older one year but looked ten years older. She is constantly hearing of people being shot and wounded. And how might I know this? She was asked if she had a diary. And guess what she did and it was sent to be published. I think this book was over all pretty well written. I would recomend this book to you if you liked the book The Diary Of Anne Frank. So to find out what happens pick up Zlata's Diary.
-Christine Lanier
Zlata's Review.......2007-04-18
Taylor (Lanier Middle School)
Zlata's Dairy is the real life issue of how an eleven year old girl struggles to stay alive during a civil war in Sarajevo, (1991-93) but more importantly trying to cope with the pain friends and family leaving to escape the war. During the whole process she decides to keep a diary which then later becomes published in the years 1992 and 1993.
This book tells a story of family, friendship, and most of all courage. Though a war might be going on, Zlata Filipovic still manages to go to school. Zlata lives in an average sized apartment with her mother and father.
The life lesson in this book is that no matter how hard things get you will always have your family there with you. And that thing's in life will get though, but eventually they will get better. Also never dwell on the bad things, but the good.
I personally do not like this book. The fact that this is a diary is one of the reasons I don't like this book, it skips around and does not tell you everything that happens.It also repeats everything, so all you are reading is what you read before.I would recamend this book to all, even though I did not like it, does'n mean you don't.
Book Description
From the author of the international bestseller ZlataÂ's Diary comes a haunting testament to how warÂ's brutality affects the lives of young people
Zlata FilipovicÂ's diary of her harrowing war experiences in the Balkans, published in 1993, made her a globally recognized spokesperson for children affected by military conflict. In Stolen Voices, she and co-editor Melanie Challenger have gathered fifteen diaries of young people coping with war, from World War I to the struggle in Iraq that continues today. Profoundly affecting testimonies of shattered youth and the gritty particulars of war in the tradition of Anne Frank, this extraordinary collection— the first of its kind—is sure to leave a lasting impression on young and old readers alike.
Customer Reviews:
Precious..and painful.......2007-04-13
This is a compilation of war diaries from young people, about 12-20 years old, in wars from WWI to present conflicts in Israel, Palestine and Iraq. The diarists are amazingly engaging.. One minute they are typical adolescents worrying about school or friendships, and then they are concerned for their lives, those of their families, and needs such as food, basic hygiene and human dignity. And often they are both typical and suffering at the same time, a fascinating interplay.
If you know a young person who has met with serious losses in their life, this may be a difficult, but cathartic book for them to read. In our present time in the US, lives for many of our young people seem very simple and easy. Those who have experienced significant loss feel quite alone, as it seems that their peers have no worries beyond popularity, sports and grades. This book can help with that as they hear the voices of those who also, although very young, are dealing with difficult --- sometimes wayyyyy beyond difficult-- times. We hope and pray that this book help us all remember the horrors, not the glories of war, and renew our personal resolve to do what we can to work for peace and justice.
Read it, and you'll find yourself thoroughly engaged in some other worlds. Yeah, it isn't a light or easy read... but you'll be glad you read it. Precious and painful.
Through the Eyes of the Innocents.......2007-04-13
This collection of war diaries presents conflicts from World War I to Iraq through a lens not usually viewed - the writings of young people who are experiencing them first hand. These intimate writings relate the diarists' fears for themselves and their families and the anguish of losses they suffer. Yet each one also talks about their hopes for the future in a life without war.
The insights into history are also fascinating, as many of the diarists relate the political perspectives of the war they're living through. I find it so interesting to discover what the people in a country were thinking at the time of a war as opposed to what their leaders were saying about it publicly. And I was pleasantly surprised to find each diary very well written and the stories unfolding in a way that kept a narrative story line progressing. This must be the work of editors Zlata Filipovic and Melanie Challenger, who chose which entries of the diaries to include.
I imagine this work was particularly poignant for Filipovic, whose diary of wartime Sarajevo is included. A line from one of her entries sums up the sentiment that was a common thread among many of the diarists, "I simply don't understand it. Of course, I'm 'young' and politics are conducted by 'grown-ups.' But I think we 'young' would do it better. We certainly wouldn't have chosen war...."
Average customer rating:
- Black and White--What's in a name?
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Galatea (Salt Modern Poets S.)
Melanie Challenger
Manufacturer: Salt Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General
| Poetry
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
British & Irish
| Single Authors
| Poetry
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 1844712907 |
Book Description
In Galatea, her first collection, Challenger casts a poet's sensitive eye across the hours of a tumultuous century to create startling poems whose voice - resolute, compassionate, original - both celebrates and mourns the tensions of human nature. Drawing her themes from the Pygmalion myth, Challenger portrays her subjects in trembling poise between action and inaction, consummation and defeat.
Customer Reviews:
Black and White--What's in a name?.......2007-07-27
What's in a name? The etymology of Melanie is "black or dark-skinned" and Galatea is "she who is milk-white." From these origins we have flesh made word in the text and page before us. Galatea, whether body or statue, casts the same dark shadow. In this case what lies in shadow is not evil, but truth--what Robert Graves must have had in mind by suggesting the myth depicts the overthrow of the matrilineal cult.
Challenger writes:
Strangeness comes to us all at the limits of Eros,
Where tenderness, by the gradual erosion
Of each small act of worship, mercerises the flesh
Of the love-feast, rendering the body revelational.
Like the palindrome, Eros saw I was sore, Romanticism is a vicious cycle that must be broken. You can't eat Hope. Tenderness has left us to chemically treat the body as if each pill were the small act of worship. Mercerise could also render a mercer out the tenderness as in legal tender--money is made of cotton. Mercerising increases the luster and affinity for dye. So what does that teach us about the body? We are born and given a birth certificate with a name on it to be bought and sold as a product--willingly or unwillingly. So what is revelational is not ecstacy, but a spiritual apocalypse in order to identify the body without giving it a name. It is a complete erosion of the self-constructed self and the socially-constructed self. To put it quite simply Challenger reminds us what it is to be human. Easier said than done, and she does it here.
Product Description
4 Novels Roosevelts, Zlata's Diary, Shot in the Dark, Learning How the Heart Beats
Average customer rating:
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A Distant War Comes Home: Maine in the Civil War Era
Manufacturer: Down East Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| State & Local
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Maine
| State & Local
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Northeast
| State & Local
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Civil War
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Military
| History
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0892723939 |
Book Description
The CIA's many attempts to assassinate democracy are described in 42 brief chapters, each accompanied by a cartoon.
Customer Reviews:
Short, concise and still relevant today.......2006-12-10
I have used this book on numerous occassions for political science classes, journalistic research and studies on Latin America and the "middle east", as well as numerous de-bunking sessions with people who seem set in their denial of US involvement (direct and indirect) in toppling popularly elected regimes in the world. The sad truth is this is only the tip of the iceberg...
The short synopsis and easy access for any audience makes this book a must for anyone serious about having a detailed and informed discussion about US foreign policy both in the past and today.
Short and Sweet.......2006-05-12
"The CIA's Greatest Hits" is small and it is thin- wonderful qualities in a book. Each page is barely larger than a 4"x 6" notecard, and there is an accompanying cartoon for each summary.
The 42 summaries of operations are each completed on two pages. I was surprised by the summary regarding the Jonestown Massacre. 1 had believed the disinformation.
The summaries range from the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland to the Russian-Afghan war, which cost the US $5-6 billion.
If we have created an organization that assassinates heads of states and rigs elections around the world, how can we keep that rogue agency from pursuing those same activities domestically? The book concludes, "As long as the CIA exists, our government can break any law it chooses in the name of national security."
We supposedly perform these actions to prevent Communist takeovers, but we always end up installing brutal and ruthless thugs. For Americans, the most insulting aspect of the CIA is that our tax money is used to feed us disinformation.
Imperialism? A thing of the past, huh?.......2006-01-10
Mark Zepezauer took advantage, unlike many Americans, of the declassified CIA documents, and compacted complicated events into a single book. I got this book after doing years of research regarding the assassination of John F. Kennedy and Malcolm X. Especially Malcolm X, seeing that COINTELPRO (FBI documents) is all declassified now. Don't take Zepezauer's word for it, do your own research, your own thinking. But with the CIA admission concerning the removal of leaders like Lumumba, Mossedegh, Arbenz, Allende, Sukarno, the Pathet Loa Party and so forth, AND the installation os dictators like Suharto, Pinochet, Shah Phalevi, D'Aubassaun, and members of the Al-Quida in Afghanistan, it's hard to deny that the United States of America was, and still is, an imperialist country. And the only reason there leaders were either removed, or installed, was for the fortification of government-protected corporations in America.
-Anton Batey
Zepezaur is Superb.......2005-05-30
I read this book right after september 11th when I was curious about why someone might want to attack the United States. After reading this book all I can say is WOW! Still I had to admit that I was more than a little dubious about the claims this book makes. I spent several months doing research and was severely disappointed when it all checked out. The CIA's Greatest Hits is the short version of some of the sketchiest things we are never taught in school.
Thinking about this kind of stuff tends to make my guts and my intellect roll. In fact, it may be easier to call the book propaganda and lies so I wouldn't have to think about the consequences of our government killing all those people. If you accept it as truth (or just do the long hours of research like I did) you will probably start to ask some difficult questions about the way the government actually works and how it purports to work and why there is such a massive gulf between two.This book takes some of that pressure off by presenting the information with funny little graphics and a tongue in cheek style that allow you to keep reading instead of getting bogged down and depressed. You can even laugh out loud occasionally.
Zepezaur does a superb job here because the book appeals to wide range of people. Someone who is totally unfamiliar with politics could pick this up and finish in a couple nights of light reading. This book scores major points with me because it's easily approachable to those who don't have a strong backing in history, yet the battle hardened Chomskyite will no doubt find new info.
I do wish he had cited sources on the pages themselves instead of in an index. It just makes them easier to check out for people who think this book is full of lies.
I also just want to say that thought it was really funny when one reviewer said "Yes, the CIA has made mistakes" and another responded by saying "A decades-long pattern of murder and subterfuge does not equal an occasional mistake." Another reviewer said that the book was disrespectful...I think it's sad that "respect" means hiding the truth about egregious crimes.
After reading the book I ended up emailing Mark Zepezaur with a couple questions. He was extremely accommodating and super friendly. I also got to talk to him briefly during a book tour and he has been one of the more politically articulate people I have ever met.
If you liked this but felt that it was a little short or didn't present enough hard facts check out another (short) book called Addicted to War: Why the US can't Kick Militarism. Mark Zepezaur also did a similar comic series called "US History Backwards."
A grand summary.......2003-05-08
Many books attempt to include more detail on whatever historical situation they are attempting to *cover*. I know that disinformation is a large part of any secret circus stunt, and everything that happens at a circus might be more convincing than any of the parts of the world that allegedly existed before and after the momentous events that are summarized on the back cover of this book as times when the C.I.A. "participated in the assassinations of . . . literally millions of ordinary people in Indonesia, Guatemala, El Salvador, Vietnam, East Timor and many other countries." I've been in one of those countries on a U.S. government project that was not quite secret enough to suit some people, and it seemed like the C.I.A. was there long before I was, and even William Colby couldn't convince LBJ that hundreds of thousands of American troops shooting people there might get into the newspapers more often than he would like. I like reading this book on places I have never been, like Germany, whose famous Hitler employed General Reinhard Gehlen as "Hitler's intelligence chief for the Eastern front" (p. 6) before he had the opportunity to help form the C.I.A. pursuant to a "secret treaty, his spy organization--which came to be called the Gehlen Org--would work for, and be funded by, the US until a new German government came to power." (p. 6). I have searched for other information on the web about Reinhard Gehlen, which corresponds so well to the information in this book, that it is possible that the secret treaty also required Gehlen to teach the C.I.A. everything it knows.
Hit number 38: Crooked Banks, on BCCI, which had a London branch that was shut down by British bank examiners in 1991, managed loosely "Roughly $20 billion of BCCI's assets remain unaccouted for," though "Before collapsing, BCCI managed to facilitate a host of CIA covert operations, notably George Bush's efforts to pump weapons to Saddam Hussein's Iraq (see Hit #40) and Edwin Wilson's `unauthorized' arming of Libya (see Hit #30)." (p. 81). Some people might still believe that BCCI was a Pakastani bank, and Mark Zepezauer seems to be dubiously relying on a rumor that it was the work of "Director Richard Helms in particular, actually started the bank, and that it `wasn't a Pakistani bank at all.'" (pp. 80-81)
Book Description
The Bird Guides for Nature Enthusiasts
American Bird Conservancy Compact Guides focus on the birds that can be observed at specific sites. With illustrations by American's finest bird artists, a handy, pocket-sized format and a groundbreaking organization system derived from the definitive North American bird guide, ABC's All the Birds of North America, they are simply the most useful bird guides available.
All The Waterbirds tells you everything you need to know about the birds you'll see at lakes, rivers, and freshwater wetlands all across North America. It features:
Highly informative entries on more than 100 freshwater bird species.
Spectacular, full-color paintings of birds in their natural habitats that set new standards for beauty and accuracy.
Tips on where and how to find waterbirds; plus a checklist for recording your sightings.
Books:
- The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln
- The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Alone 1932-1940
- The Last Tsar: The Life and Death of Nicholas II
- The Little School: Tales of Disappearance and Survival
- The Lobotomist: A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness
- The Making of The African Queen
- The Man Who Predicts Earthquakes: Jim Berkland, Maverick Geologist--How His Quake Warnings Can Save Lives
- The Medical Millennium: 1000 Pioneers Who Have Contributed to the Development of Medicine Over the Last 1000 Years
- The Naked Soldier: A True Story of the French Foreign Legion
- The Olive Farm: A Memoir of Life, Love, and Olive Oil in the South of France
Books Index
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- I May Not Get There with You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr
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- Glory Days of Logging/Action in the Big Woods, British Columbia to California
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Teach with Your Heart: Lessons I Learned from the Freedom Writers
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
Freedom Writers (Full Screen Edition)
The Freedom Writers Diary Teacher's Guide
Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Wartime SarajevoRevised Edition
