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.</p>

他們，自由寫手，美國長島威爾遜高中的新生，大多來自貧民區，傢庭破碎、參加黑幫、吸毒販毒，頑劣不化。

她，艾琳·格魯維爾，一位名校畢業的菜鳥老師，初齣茅廬，心懷理想。

在暴力頻發的203教室，她震驚於他們的所作所為，但沒有就此放棄，而是用募集的捐款和兼職賺來的薪資給學生們買課外讀物，帶領他們閱讀名著，赴華盛頓麵見教育部長，遊覽歐洲，教他們拿起筆真誠記錄眼前所見、耳中所聞、心中所思，一顆顆封閉的心靈次第打開，他們漸漸相信自己，開始夢想，開始仰望藍天……

本書是一份關於203教室的鮮活記錄，由艾琳和同學們的真實日記匯集而成。這些真誠的文字迅速傳遍美國，傳遍全世界，改變瞭他們自己，也改變瞭韆韆萬萬的讀者……