Esmé Raji Codell has come to teach, and she's not going to let incompetent administrators, abusive parents, gang members, or her own insecurities get in the way. As she puts it, she has "Thirty-one children. Thirty-one chances. Thirty-one futures, our futures. Everything they become, I also become." Codell's portrait of an inner-city elementary school is funny, poignant, and inspiring. Her struggle to maintain individuality in the face of bureaucracy and her defiant stand against mediocrity will reverberate in companies as well as classrooms everywhere.

Original material © 1999 Esme Raji Codell. Published by arrangement with Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.

Esmé Raji Codell is a teacher and children's literature specialist at a Chicago elementary school. Her public radio feature based on this diary was awarded First Prize for National Education Reporting from the Education Writers Association. She is also the recipient of the Dr. Peggy Williams Award for the outstanding new teacher in the field of reading and language arts, given by the Chicago chapter of the International Reading Association. Esmé live in Chicago with her husband and son.