他们，自由写手，美国长岛威尔逊高中的新生，大多来自贫民区，家庭破碎、参加黑帮、吸毒贩毒，顽劣不化。

她，艾琳·格鲁维尔，一位名校毕业的菜鸟老师，初出茅庐，心怀理想。

在暴力频发的203教室，她震惊于他们的所作所为，但没有就此放弃，而是用募集的捐款和兼职赚来的薪资给学生们买课外读物，带领他们阅读名著，赴华盛顿面见教育部长，游览欧洲，教他们拿起笔真诚记录眼前所见、耳中所闻、心中所思，一颗颗封闭的心灵次第打开，他们渐渐相信自己，开始梦想，开始仰望蓝天……

本书是一份关于203教室的鲜活记录，由艾琳和同学们的真实日记汇集而成。这些真诚的文字迅速传遍美国，传遍全世界，改变了他们自己，也改变了千千万万的读者……

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>