Educating Esmé: Diary of a Teacher's First Year

Fifth-grader Melanie instinctively knows what Codell finds out when she begins as a 24-year-old first-year teacher in an inner-city Chicago school: "You got to know everything." And that doesn't mean just what the textbooks say. As Codell gamely reveals in her forthright diary entries, it means fighting lazy teachers and unsupportive administrators; it means dealing with violence and racism; it means marshalling energy, imagination, and wit enough to ensure her students the best possible education. Teens who have been through "the system" can't help but recognize the landscape.