The 57 Bus – A Book YOU Should Read

In this video, Clarence will give a short summary of the book “The 57 Bus” by Dashka Slater, and give a brief overview of the theme of this book.

The book “The 57 Bus” is a book written by Dashka Slater. Throughout this book, it talks a lot about gender discrimination and gender inequality which Sasha, the main character faces a lot in this book. Sasha is a non-binary teenager living in Oakland, California, one of the most dangerous cities in the US, it was on the day when Sasha was wearing a skirt, that a reckless act done by a stranger changed both their lives forever.

One theme in this book is that looks do not judge a person, but it’s the personality that really matters. For example, on page 59, Sasha was approached by an elderly woman she asks, “Why are you wearing a skirt?…. You’re not a girl!” which I thought this part showed how the old woman cared about gender and what people wore, which in this case Sasha also faced this same problem when Richard (The boy who burnt Sasha) burned because Sasha was wearing a skirt which he thought Sasha could not. Another example was on page 42 when Sasha stated that before Sasha had people at school who kept coming up to her asking nonsensical things, and questions that made Sasha uncomfortable to share.

Two reasons why I would recommend this book is because 1) this book teaches us discrimination and how it may affect someone else’s life and also teaches a lot about decision making and how to make good decisions, 2) although this is a non-fiction book and it may sound boring, but actually the book has a lot of life lessons you can learn from the actions the characters did in this book. But overall this is an amazing book for readers.

One thing I learned in this unit was how to organize my notes and how to take notes and find the theme, central ideas, and social issues in my book.