Description

5.0 out of 5 stars Hauntingly Insightful
Reviewed in the United States on December 20, 2014
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Heartbreaking book that makes you laugh and cry at the same time. It paints a dreary picture of kids with very broken pasts forced into an even more broken system. This book opens the door to a question no one wants to address, “How do we start helping these kids break the cycle instead of dooming them to repeated sentences, or worse, death?”.

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is poignantly written, hard, beautiful, and ultimately important.
Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2015
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This is the story of a young woman trying to make sense of her own life and challenges and coming to work with a group of students that tend to be vulnerable, misunderstood, and left behind by society.

One of the great challenges – both for the author and her readers – is to figure out how to understand the terrible pasts that tend to have an outside impact on shaping these young people’s behaviors, and empathize with that plight, while also recognizing that not everyone can be saved. The author does her damndest to try and understand, reward progress, and lend inspiration to not only her students, but to all of us whom she chose to share her story with.

She is funny, wry, compassionate and unflinchingly honest. I alternated between tears and laughter throughout the book and walked away with a sense of wonder and admiration for the author. I recommend this highly for anyone who has ever been a teacher, a student, cared passionately for a cause, or quite simply has a vested interest in humanity and how we work towards a better future.

I look forward to reading more of Hannah Wehr’s work and hope that the next book chronicles the fall-out from this publication (based on one review, it definitely seems like she is getting some perhaps guilty co-workers very nervous!).