If you haven't seen the movie, save your money and buy the book "Freedom Writers" - a collection of diary entries from Long Beach students and their teacher Erin Gruwell in the wake of the Rodney King riots and continued gang warfare on the California streets where the students live.
The book is gripping in its personal accounts from the powerful voices of teens living in an "undeclared" war zone. They draw parallels to Anne Frank's life during World War II and that of 15-year-old writer and survivor of the Bosnian genocide Zlata.
Never is there a dull journal entry as you follow the students and their teacher from freshman year through graduation and all the people they meet and books they read. For Gruwell, who was giving the lowest of the low students - the ones not expected to graduate or even make it through the year, the four years was spent inspiring new ways to educate, enlighten and reach out to her 150 students who at the beginning couldn't be bothered with English or reading when most had to worry about getting home without getting shot and then worry that there would be food to eat when they did get home.
The book illustrates the progress these students make under their teacher's leadership - from believing that she would only last one month to believing that she could help them change the world. The students go from believing that they will live and die in the projects to attending colleges - many on scholarship and becoming heroes and leaders for other students in the gang-torn West coast.
The book is powerful and makes any reader want to pick up a pen and write for justice like the Freedom Writers themselves.
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