http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Caught-Girls-Locker-ebook/dp/B004RCNHHU/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1300466186&sr=1-16
Friday, March 18, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
My First Big Wave
At the age of 52, I rode my first big wave ... by accident. The story of how it happened is now on Kindle.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Mal Pais Travelogue Now Available on Kindle
As an experiment I combined and condensed the blogs from the January Costa Rica trip and put the resulting travelogue in the Kindle store for 99 cents. Will anyone actually pay to read it?Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Why I Wrote Boot Camp
Some of the research for Can’t Get There From Here involved speaking to homeless teens on New York’s lower east side. During one interview, a young woman mentioned that she’d run away from home when her parents had threatened to send her to a boot camp.
A short time later I read an article about “transporters,” professional kidnappers who parents hire to “grab” their children and “escort” them to boot camps. It sounded shockingly excessive, but I knew from my own experience as a teen that sometimes a young person can be so angry, rebellious, and out of control that it is impossible for a parent to force him (or her) into a car to take him somewhere he doesn't want to go. And probably impossible to keep him in that car/plane/train long enough to get him there.
But there was another aspect of boot camps that I found equally disturbing – the idea that until a child reaches the age of 18 he or she has no legal right to prevent parents from sending him or her away.
I do believe that in the vast majority of cases, sending a child to a boot camp is an act of utter parental desperation. Parents do it because they absolutely believe that it is the only avenue left to prevent a child from self-destructing, either from drug use or some other unlawful and dangerous activity. I have heard a number of stories about young people whose lives were turned around for the better after being sent to a boot camp. But, as I point out in the book, I have also read about young people who have died in such camps.
Among the many problems with boot camps is that most are run on a for-profit basis. In other words, their purpose is dual-fold: 1) To save young people from themselves and 2) To make money for their owners. Like a hotel, a boot camp has a certain number of beds it needs to fill to make this money. And also like a hotel, it can’t make money by turning people away.
So who can really judge who should be sent to a boot camp and who shouldn’t? Should a young woman be sent away because she insists on making “an unacceptable choice of boyfriends”? Should a young man be sent because he refuses to accept his parents’ choice of religions?
One thing I discovered during your research: there are plenty of boot camps that would accept both.
A short time later I read an article about “transporters,” professional kidnappers who parents hire to “grab” their children and “escort” them to boot camps. It sounded shockingly excessive, but I knew from my own experience as a teen that sometimes a young person can be so angry, rebellious, and out of control that it is impossible for a parent to force him (or her) into a car to take him somewhere he doesn't want to go. And probably impossible to keep him in that car/plane/train long enough to get him there.
But there was another aspect of boot camps that I found equally disturbing – the idea that until a child reaches the age of 18 he or she has no legal right to prevent parents from sending him or her away.
I do believe that in the vast majority of cases, sending a child to a boot camp is an act of utter parental desperation. Parents do it because they absolutely believe that it is the only avenue left to prevent a child from self-destructing, either from drug use or some other unlawful and dangerous activity. I have heard a number of stories about young people whose lives were turned around for the better after being sent to a boot camp. But, as I point out in the book, I have also read about young people who have died in such camps.
Among the many problems with boot camps is that most are run on a for-profit basis. In other words, their purpose is dual-fold: 1) To save young people from themselves and 2) To make money for their owners. Like a hotel, a boot camp has a certain number of beds it needs to fill to make this money. And also like a hotel, it can’t make money by turning people away.
So who can really judge who should be sent to a boot camp and who shouldn’t? Should a young woman be sent away because she insists on making “an unacceptable choice of boyfriends”? Should a young man be sent because he refuses to accept his parents’ choice of religions?
One thing I discovered during your research: there are plenty of boot camps that would accept both.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Starred Review for Give A Boy A Gun in Publishers Weekly
Thursday, February 17, 2011
A Teacher from California Writes About If I Grow Up
I stayed up into the late hours reading it; it is so compelling. Of course, as a teacher, I do believe that education is the way out of poverty and the gangbanger life. However, this book demonstrates the Herculean tasks of these inner city kids even getting to school and then trying to get a real education once they get to school. This inner city life is so chilling and painful. I had to keep reminding myself that this is America a couple of miles, in some cases blocks, from what most Americans consider "normal" life.
Every year I have students who want to read about gangs, and this book will surely go over well with them, but it is going to be a book all of my students are going to want to read. I hope that many, many teens read it and remember it so that this next generation will not turn their back on and ignore inner city people. The book really puts a human face on poverty. Every year I teach Dicken's A CHRISTMAS CAROL and refer back all year to the theme of ignorance. I repeat myself over and over again that problems cannot be solved if we don't know about the problem.
I am in awe of how [you are] able to write such passionate books about the most intense issues and put human faces on them and yet finds a way to bring in a little hope. [You]expose this issues in a way that teens (and everyone) can relate to and yet I could teach [your]books in an eighth grade class because [you don't] use profanity or explicit sex or violence and yet the books feel real.
Every year I have students who want to read about gangs, and this book will surely go over well with them, but it is going to be a book all of my students are going to want to read. I hope that many, many teens read it and remember it so that this next generation will not turn their back on and ignore inner city people. The book really puts a human face on poverty. Every year I teach Dicken's A CHRISTMAS CAROL and refer back all year to the theme of ignorance. I repeat myself over and over again that problems cannot be solved if we don't know about the problem.
I am in awe of how [you are] able to write such passionate books about the most intense issues and put human faces on them and yet finds a way to bring in a little hope. [You]expose this issues in a way that teens (and everyone) can relate to and yet I could teach [your]books in an eighth grade class because [you don't] use profanity or explicit sex or violence and yet the books feel real.
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