A standards-based teacher’s guide from the educator behind the #1 New York Times bestseller The Freedom Writers Diary, with innovative teaching techniques that will engage, empower, and enlighten. Don’t miss the public television documentary Freedom Writers: Stories from the Heart In response to thousands of letters and e-mails from teachers across the country who learned about Erin Gruwell and her amazing students in The Freedom Writers Diary and the hit movie Freedom Writers, Gruwell and a team of teacher experts have written The Freedom Writers Diary Teacher’s Guide, a book that will encourage teachers and students to expand the walls of their classrooms and think outside the box. Here Gruwell goes in depth and shares her unconventional but highly successful educational strategies and techniques (all 150 of her students, who had been deemed “unteachable,” graduated from Wilson High School in Long Beach, California): from her very successful “toast for change” (an exercise in which Gruwell exhorted her students to leave the past behind and start fresh) to writing exercises that focus on the importance of journal writing, vocabulary, and more. In an easy-to-use format with black-and-white illustrations, this teacher’s guide will become the essential go-to manual for teachers who want to make a difference in their pupils’ lives.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The twentieth anniversary edition of the classic story of an incredible group of students and the teacher who inspired them, featuring updates on the students’ lives, new journal entries, and an introduction by Erin Gruwell Now a public television documentary, Freedom Writers: Stories from the Heart In 1994, an idealistic first-year teacher in Long Beach, California, named Erin Gruwell confronted a room of “unteachable, at-risk” students. She had intercepted a note with an ugly racial caricature and angrily declared that this was precisely the sort of thing that led to the Holocaust. She was met by uncomprehending looks—none of her students had heard of one of the defining moments of the twentieth century. So she rebooted her entire curriculum, using treasured books such as Anne Frank’s diary as her guide to combat intolerance and misunderstanding. Her students began recording their thoughts and feelings in their own diaries, eventually dubbing themselves the “Freedom Writers.” Consisting of powerful entries from the students’ diaries and narrative text by Erin Gruwell, The Freedom Writers Diary is an unforgettable story of how hard work, courage, and determination changed the lives of a teacher and her students. In the two decades since its original publication, the book has sold more than one million copies and inspired a major motion picture Freedom Writers. And now, with this twentieth-anniversary edition, readers are brought up to date on the lives of the Freedom Writers, as they blend indispensable takes on social issues with uplifting stories of attending college—and watch their own children follow in their footsteps. The Freedom Writers Diary remains a vital read for anyone who believes in second chances.

The extraordinary memoir of the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Freedom Writers Diary, who’s been hailed as “a true inspiration” (Hilary Swank) and “simply magical when it comes to inspiring people to action” (Los Angeles Times). Don’t miss the public television documentary Freedom Writers: Stories from the Heart In this passionate, poignant, and deeply personal memoir and call to arms, Erin Gruwell, the dynamic teacher who nurtured an extraordinary group of high school students from Long Beach, California, who called themselves the Freedom Writers, picks up where The Freedom Writers Diary—and the hit movie Freedom Writers—left off and brings the reader up to date on where the Freedom Writers are today. Including their unforgettable trip to Auschwitz, where they met with Holocaust survivors; their tour of the attic of their beloved Anne Frank; and their visit to Bosnia with their friend Zlata Filipović, Teach With Your Heart chronicles what happened with the Freedom Writers as they made their way through college and beyond. Along the way, Gruwell includes lessons for parents and teachers about what she learned from her remarkable band of students as she traveled through the emotional peaks and valleys on the front lines of our nation’s educational system. A mesmerizing story of one young woman’s personal odyssey and of her unique ability to encourage others to follow in her footsteps, Teach With Your Heart is marked by the enviable radiance and irrepressible force of nature that are Erin Gruwell and her unbelievable determination to ensure that education in the United States truly meets the needs of every student.

In praise of the greatest job in the world... The right book at the right time: an impassioned defense of teachers and why we need them now more than ever. Teacher turned teacher’s advocate Taylor Mali inspired millions with his original poem “What Teachers Make,” a passionate and unforgettable response to a rich man at a dinner party who sneeringly asked him what teachers make. Mali’s sharp, funny, perceptive look at life in the classroom pays tribute to the joys of teaching…and explains why teachers are so vital to our society. What Teachers Make is a book that will be treasured and shared by every teacher in America—and everybody who’s ever loved or learned from one.

At once "a pop culture phenomenon" (Publishers Weekly) and "screamingly funny" (Booklist), Educating Esmé "should be read by anyone who's interested in the future of public education" (Boston Phoenix Literary Section). A must-read for parents, new teachers, and classroom veterans, Educating Esmé is the exuberant diary of Esmé Raji Codell’s first year teaching in a Chicago public school. Fresh-mouthed and free-spirited, the irrepressible Madame Esmé—as she prefers to be called—does the cha-cha during multiplication tables, roller-skates down the hallways, and puts on rousing performances with at-risk students in the library. Her diary opens a window into a real-life classroom from a teacher’s perspective. While battling bureaucrats, gang members, abusive parents, and her own insecurities, this gifted young woman reveals what it takes to be an exceptional teacher. Heroine to thousands of parents and educators, Esmé now shares more of her ingenious and yet down-to-earth approaches to the classroom in a supplementary guide to help new teachers hit the ground running. As relevant and iconoclastic as when it was first published, Educating Esmé is a classic, as is Madame Esmé herself.

For use in schools and libraries only. Rufus Henry, a young parolee, jeopardizes his life when he refuses to cooperate with the neighborhood street gang.

Philadelphia 1777 is no place for the faint of heart. The rumble of war with the British grows louder each day, and spies for and against the Patriots are everywhere. No one is above suspicion. Still, everyday life must go on and young Maddy Rose must help her mother, especially since her father's death at the Battle of Princeton and now with her beloved brother Jonathan off with Washington's army. But when childhood games become life-and-death actions, Maddy Rose is drawn ever deeper into events that will explode beyond her imagining. As young America stands on the very brink of its fight for freedom, it becomes clear that even the smallest of citizens can play the largest of parts, and that the role of a patriot has nothing to do with age and everything to do with heart. In The Scarlet Stockings Spy, Trinka Hakes Noble melds a suspenseful tale of devotion, sacrifice, and patriotism with the stark realities of our country's birth.Noted picture book author and illustrator Trinka Hakes Noble has pursued the study of children's book writing and illustrating in New York City at Parsons School of Design, the New School University, Caldecott medalist Uri Shulevitz's Greenwich Village Workshop, and New York University. She has authored and illustrated numerous books including the popular Jimmy's Boa series, which has been translated into six languages. Trinka lives in Berrnardsville, New Jersey. The Scarlet Stockings Spy is her first book with Sleeping Bear Press. Because Robert Papp's childhood drawings of his favorite superheros were such a pleasure, it was only natural that he would wind up an illustrator. Nowadays, his award-winning artwork appears on book covers and in magazines instead of on the refrigerator. He has produced hundreds of cover illustrations for major publishers across the United States. Robert lives in historic Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

“Grand, robust, a rich and big novel.”—Alice Walker, The New York Times Book Review “In [Jane Pittman], Ernest Gaines has created a legendary figure. . . . Gaines’s novel brings to mind other great works: The Odyssey, for the way his heroine’s travels manage to summarize the American history of her race, and Huckleberry Finn, for the clarity of [Pittman’s] voice, for her rare capacity to sort through the mess of years and things to find the one true story of it all.”—Newsweek Miss Jane Pittman. She is one of the most unforgettable heroines in American fiction, a woman whose life has come to symbolize the struggle for freedom, dignity, and justice. Ernest J. Gaines’s now-classic novel—written as an autobiography—spans one hundred years of Miss Jane’s remarkable life, from her childhood as a slave on a Louisiana plantation to the Civil Rights era of the 1960s. It is a story of courage and survival, history, bigotry, and hope—as seen through the eyes of a woman who lived through it all. A historical tour de force, a triumph of fiction, Miss Jane’s eloquent narrative brings to life an important story of race in America—and stands as a landmark work for our time.

Survivor... a word continuously thought of when reading this memoir. Upon the release of The Freedom Writers Diary and film adaptation starring Hilary Swank in 2007, New York Times bestselling author Darrius Garrett realized that both book and movie tell the Freedom Writer Story as a whole, but not on a personal level. During speaking engagements, the same questions always surface: 'Did Ms. Gruwell change you? How did you make it out of the gang life? What stopped you from killing yourself?' Darrius's answers are inside. Diary of a Freedom Writer takes you on a journey beyond the classrooms to the treacherous streets of Long Beach, California. An innocent little boy born in poverty and raised in a violent environment, Darrius became a product of the streets, written off by the school and judicial systems alike, growing up in an environment full of gangs and drugs. He spent his life searching for a father figure until he became a Freedom Writer, motivational speaker, bestselling author, and finally a father himself. His story is that of a man realizing his experiences are what made him the man he has been seeking to be all his life. Upon beating the odds, Diary of a Freedom Writer serves as proof that Darrius's story of struggle, life, change, and hope will uplift, educate, encourage, and inspire.

The compelling firsthand account of the war in Sarajevo through the eyes of a young Croatian girl.