It’s the first day of school at Stanton Central High. The teacher stands by the door as ready as she’s going to be. The 6B Improvement of Language Skills class bursts in: Neal, with a shaved head; Joe, wearing three earrings; Vance, in dark glasses and a heavy navy jacket, the same one he wore the few days he attended last year… plus the other fourteen. “I’m hungry”… “I hate English” … “I’m sick of this already.” And so the new year begins. We will be with them for two semesters and we will get to know them all. We’ll read their poems and journals. Be in on their muttered remarks and jokes. We’ll see what they put in their Time Capsules and hear what they have to say in their interviews. We’ll listen to their discussions as they watch Great Expectations. Many of us will come to care about all of them and be sad when some of them run away or get arrested or become pregnant. We’ll understand why this teacher is relieved when Stan and Mike are both absent on a subzero Monday in the middle of February. Lots of days, we’ll give her a gold star for her efforts. \t “Wow. This is a terrific book by a woman who really knows at-risk high school students who are living "on the edge". And she knows how to write. The style is fresh, without jargon; you can't help turning pages. I found the book engrossing, with sharply drawn portraits of students who stayed on my mind. She does a marvelous job of creating the world of school, the rhythms of the classroom, the body language of students. …Howard knows her kids. She looks at them with deep, thoughtful, loving eyes. Readers will sense this from the first page.” \t ─Ralph Fletcher, author of Walking Trees: Portraits of Teachers and Children in the Cultures of Schools