Multicultural Books

The Freedom Writers Diary : How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them

Freedom Writers, Zlata Filipovic

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 141 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

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.

Radical Simplicity: Small Footprints on a Finite Earth

Jim Merkel

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Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Self-Help -> Happiness

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Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Imagine you are first in line at a potluck buffet. The spread includes not just food and water, but all the materials needed for shelter, clothing, healthcare, and education. How do you know how much to take? How much is enough to leave for your neighbors behind you—not just the six billion people, but the wildlife, and the as-yet-unborn?

In the face of looming ecological disaster, many people feel the need to change their own lifestyles as a tangible way of transforming our unsustainable culture. Radical Simplicity is the first book that guides the reader to a personal sustainability goal, then offers a process to monitor progress to a lifestyle that is equitable amongst all people, species, and generations. It employs three tools to help readers begin their customized journey to simplicity:

>It builds on steps from Your Money or Your Life so readers can design their own personal economics to save money, get free of debt, and align their work with their values.
It uses refined tools from Our Ecological Footprint so readers can measure how much nature is needed to supply all they consume and absorb their waste.
Combining lyrical narrative, compassionate advocacy, and absorbing science, Radical Simplicity is a practical, personal answer to twenty-first century challenges that will appeal as much to Cultural Creatives and students as to spiritual seekers, policy makers, and sustainability professionals.

Jim Merkel quit his job as a military engineer following the Exxon Valdez disaster and has since worked to develop tools for personal and societal sustainability. He founded the Global Living Project to further this work and conducts workshops around North America on this topic.

Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire: The Methods and Madness Inside Room 56

Rafe Esquith

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 71 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

From one of America’s most celebrated educators, an inspiring guide to transforming every child’s education

In a Los Angeles neighborhood plagued by guns, gangs, and drugs, there is an exceptional classroom known as Room 56. The fifth graders inside are first-generation immigrants who live in poverty and speak English as a second language. They also play Vivaldi, perform Shakespeare, score in the top 1 percent on standardized tests, and go on to attend Ivy League universities. Rafe Esquith is the teacher responsible for these accomplishments.

From the man whom The New York Times calls "a genius and a saint" comes a revelatory program for educating today’s youth. In Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire!, Rafe Esquith reveals the techniques that have made him one of the most acclaimed educators of our time. The two mottoes in Esquith’s classroom are "Be Nice, Work Hard," and "There Are No Shortcuts." His students voluntarily come to school at 6:30 in the morning and work until 5:00 in the afternoon. They learn to handle money responsibly, tackle algebra, and travel the country to study history. They pair Hamlet with rock and roll, and read the American classics. Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire! is a brilliant and inspiring road map for parents, teachers, and anyone who cares about the future success of our nation’s children.

Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind

Graham Hancock

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Total reviews: 51 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Less than fifty thousand years ago mankind had no art, no religion, no sophisticated symbolism, no innovative thinking. Then, in a dramatic and electrifying change, described by scientists as "the greatest riddle in human history," all the skills and qualities that we value most highly in ourselves appeared already fully formed, as though bestowed on us by hidden powers. In Supernatural Graham Hancock sets out to investigate this mysterious "before-and-after moment" and to discover the truth about the influences that gave birth to the modern human mind.

His quest takes him on a detective journey from the stunningly beautiful painted caves of prehistoric France, Spain, and Italy to rock shelters in the mountains of South Africa, where he finds extraordinary Stone Age art. He uncovers clues that lead him to the depths of the Amazon rainforest to drink the powerful hallucinogen Ayahuasca with shamans, whose paintings contain images of "supernatural beings" identical to the animal-human hybrids depicted in prehistoric caves. Hallucinogens such as mescaline also produce visionary encounters with exactly the same beings. Scientists at the cutting edge of consciousness research have begun to consider the possibility that such hallucinations may be real perceptions of other "dimensions." Could the "supernaturals" first depicted in the painted caves be the ancient teachers of mankind? Could it be that human evolution is not just the "meaningless" process that Darwin identified, but something more purposive and intelligent that we have barely begun to understand?

This newly revised edition of Supernatural is now available for the first time as a paperback original.

Graham Hancock is the author of the international bestsellers The Sign and The Seal, Fingerprints of the Gods, and Heaven's Mirror. His books have sold more than five million copies.

Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom, Updated Edition

Lisa Delpit

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 41 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

An updated edition of the classic revolutionary analysis of the role of race in the classroom.

Winner of an American Educational Studies Association Critics' Choice Award and Choice Magazine's Outstanding Academic book award, and voted one of Teacher Magazine's "great books," Other People's Children has sold over 150,000 copies since its original hardcover publication. This anniversary edition features a new introduction by Delpit as well as new framing essays by Herbert Kohl and Charles Payne.

In a radical analysis of contemporary classrooms, MacArthur Award-winning author Lisa Delpit develops ideas about ways teachers can be better "cultural transmitters" in the classroom, where prejudice, stereotypes, and cultural assumptions breed ineffective education. Delpit suggests that many academic problems attributed to children of color are actually the result of miscommunication, as primarily white teachers and "other people's children" struggle with the imbalance of power and the dynamics plaguing our system.

A new classic among educators, Other People's Children is a must-read for teachers, administrators, and parents striving to improve the quality of America's education system.

The Mis-Education of the Negro (An African American Heritage Book)

Carter G. Woodson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 46 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

I ordered book, paid for same, received same ... my kind of transaction, smooth and uneventful! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This is book a must have for anyone studying African American History. If you are building a library, it cannot be complete without this writing - this is one of the foundational cornerstones.

The MIS-EDUCATION of the NEGRO 5 out of 5 stars.
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This is a wonderful book. I read it many years ago as a young person. And after becoming an adult I purchased it and read it again. My son read it when he was younger and he still keeps a copy at his home.
His son is reading it now. This is a book that everyone should read. It's a great read for blacks, because it's about blacks. However, this book is enlightening for anyone who dares to pick it up.
Great read!

Editorial Review:

The Mis-Education of the Negro is one of the most important books on education ever written. Carter G. Woodson shows us the weakness of Euro-centric based curriculums that fail to include African American history and culture. This system mis-educates the African American student, failing to prepare them for success and to give them an adequate sense of who they are within the system that they must live. Woodson provides many strong solutions to the problems he identifies. A must-read for anyone working in the education field.

The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America

Jonathan Kozol

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Total reviews: 53 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Over the last 15 years, the state of inner-city public schools has been in a steep and continuing decline. Since the federal courts began dismantling the landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, segregation of black children has reverted to its highest level since 1968. In many inner-city schools, a stick-and-carrot method of behavioral control traditionally used in prisons is now used with students. Meanwhile, as high-stakes testing takes on pathological and punitive dimensions, liberal education has been increasingly replaced by culturally barren and robotic methods of instruction that would be rejected out of hand by schools that serve the mainstream of society.

Filled with the passionate voices of children, principals, and teachers, and some of the most revered leaders in the black community, The Shame of the Nation pays tribute to those undefeated educators who persist against the odds, but directly challenges the chilling practices now being forced upon our urban systems by the Bush administration. In their place, Kozol offers a humane, dramatic challenge to our nation to fulfill at last the promise made some 50 years ago to all our youngest citizens.

Framework for Understanding Poverty

Ruby K. Payne

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 97 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Seller should be banned 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 7 people found this review helpful.

This seller never shipped the book and never returned my emails as to why. I ordered it for a course I had to teach on poverty and did not receive my book on time for the class. This seller should not be allowed to sell on the site.

I passed my test 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Very enlightning book, gives a deeper understanding of povery and why it is hard to break the cycle.

Ruby Payne is amazing! 5 out of 5 stars.
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This book is a quick, easy read and should be a requirement for all! You will gain an appreciation for all economic/social classes and learn more about yourself. As a teacher, this book brought clarity to situations in the past and will guide my behavior in the future. I believe that every lawmaker and politician should read this book before making decisions about helping the poor. An amazing book and a must read!

Editorial Review:

A Framework for Understanding Poverty teaches the hidden rules of economic class and spreads the message that, despite the obstacles poverty can create in all types of interaction, there are specific strategies for overcoming them. Through case studies, personal stories and observations that produce some aha! moments, Payne clearly strikes a chord in her readers., and provides a hopeful message.

Propaganda

Edward Bernays

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Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"Bernays' honest and practical manual provides much insight into some of the most powerful and influential institutions of contemporary industrial state capitalist democracies."-Noam Chomsky

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country."-Edward Bernays, Propaganda

A seminal and controversial figure in the history of political thought and public relations, Edward Bernays (18911995), pioneered the scientific technique of shaping and manipulating public opinion, which he famously dubbed "engineering of consent." During World War I, he was an integral part of the U.S. Committee on Public Information (CPI), a powerful propaganda apparatus that was mobilized to package, advertise and sell the war to the American people as one that would "Make the World Safe for Democracy." The CPI would become the blueprint in which marketing strategies for future wars would be based upon.

Bernays applied the techniques he had learned in the CPI and, incorporating some of the ideas of Walter Lipmann, became an outspoken proponent of propaganda as a tool for democratic and corporate manipulation of the population. His 1928 bombshell Propaganda lays out his eerily prescient vision for using propaganda to regiment the collective mind in a variety of areas, including government, politics, art, science and education. To read this book today is to frightfully comprehend what our contemporary institutions of government and business have become in regards to organized manipulation of the masses.

This is the first reprint of Propaganda in over 30 years and features an introduction by Mark Crispin Miller, author of The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder.

The Freedom Writers Diary (Movie Tie-in Edition): How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them

The Freedom Writers, Erin Gruwell

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Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Shocked by the teenage violence she witnessed during the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, Erin Gruwell became a teacher at a high school rampant with hostility and racial intolerance. For many of these students–whose ranks included substance abusers, gang members, the homeless, and victims of abuse–Gruwell was the first person to treat them with dignity, to believe in their potential and help them see it themselves. Soon, their loyalty towards their teacher and burning enthusiasm to help end violence and intolerance became a force of its own. Inspired by reading The Diary of Anne Frank and meeting Zlata Filipovic (the eleven-year old girl who wrote of her life in Sarajevo during the civil war), the students began a joint diary of their inner-city upbringings. Told through anonymous entries to protect their identities and allow for complete candor, The Freedom Writers Diary is filled with astounding vignettes from 150 students who, like civil rights activist Rosa Parks and the Freedom Riders, heard society tell them where to go–and refused to listen.





Proceeds from this book benefit the Freedom Writers Foundation, an organization set up to provide scholarships for underprivieged youth and to train teachers